In this video I’m going to break down how to shoot b-roll clips for your talking head videos,
and this video is part of a series so check out the first two videos because the very first video
talks about the two different ways that you can shoot b-roll, and so this video is going to go
into more detail about one of those ways. So I’m going to show you how to shoot b-roll clips for
your talking head videos using a single camera setup or a multi-camera setup and I'll also show
you how to edit everything together as well, and then in the next video I'll show you the
second way of shooting the b-roll, which was b-roll sequences,
so do subscribe if you want to see that video. Also this video is sponsored by FilmConvert.
So in order to film your b-roll clips there are two ways that you can do this you can either do
it with a single camera setup or a multi-camera setup, and the first way that I'm going to show
you is with a single camera setup, so if you're the kind of person that doesn't necessarily
remember all the information that you need to talk about and you find it more comfortable
to read off a script and use a teleprompter then that's something that you can do for your talking
head piece for this scenario, but I have covered this in another video so do check that out, I
won't go to go into it in this video in depth and I'll put a link in the description to that video.
Otherwise if you don't want to use a teleprompter, you don't want to use a script
then I really do suggest just writing out some bullet points so that you can kind of have a quick
look at what you're trying to say and then film your talking head piece, but I'm pretty sure you
already know how to film and talking head piece so again I won't go into loads of detail about that.
So once you have filmed your talking head piece the next thing you want to do is take
it into your editing software, I use Premiere so that's what I'm going to be using in this video.
Once you've got your talking head clip in your editing software, you want to go through and just
edit it, take out any breaks and stuff like that, so just basically clean up the entire video clip,
and once you've done this then you can add markers to your talking head piece for where you want to
put b-roll over the top of that. Once you've added the markers the markers serve as your shot list
so you can go back through the talking head piece, look at where you've added
your markers and then start writing out your shot list for your b-roll clips.
One of the things to remember is that when you're shooting a b-roll clips if you have clips that are
similar, if you look down your shot list and you have clips that are similar try and film
them all at the same time because if you have to keep putting your camera at a different angle
or a different position or changing your lens then it's just gonna take too long, so if you
can kind of group the clips that are similar then you could shoot all those in one go and
then switch your lens or move the camera and then shoot all the other clips and just do it that way.
The other thing is when you're shooting the b-roll clips, if you can verbally say at the beginning of
each clip, when you press record, which clip it is then it will help when you start to put everything
together in the edit because you can look through the clips, but it's a lot quicker if you can just
quickly hear at the beginning of the clip this is shot x or this is shot y, so that's a really good
way of just trying to organize the clips as well. When you have all your clips all you have to do is
literally just put the clips into your editing software and then just add them to wherever you
added the markers and that's literally all you have to do, it's so simple and easy.
The best thing about filming the talking head piece first is that once, once you go into the
edit and you start cutting everything up and basically just tidying up that entire talking
head piece you can see where all the jump cuts are. So instead of having a talking head piece
which is really jumpy you can see where you can actually put those b-roll clips as well,
so you can just add fillers or you can add motion graphics over those jump cuts, so it
just makes it easier to film the talking head piece first if you haven't scripted the video.
So the next method is using a multi-camera setup and for this you would use two or more cameras. In
this video I'm just gonna use two cameras because it'll be a lot easier and I don't really need
more than two at this point but you'll use two cameras with two different focal lengths on each
lens, for each lens and this is perfect if you want to shoot your talking head piece and your
b-roll at the same time if you don't have a lot of time to film them separately. So I'll show you how
I go about doing this so the first camera which is going to be the A camera is going to be recording
you talking, so for this you might want to have a lens which is maybe around 20, 25, 35mm depending
on how far away from the lens you're standing. So this is going to be your medium shot and then the
B camera is going to be filming your b-roll so this is where you're going to want to have
a camera shot which is more of a close-up so that you can demonstrate what you're talking about. So
if you're doing an explainer video or a tutorial video and you've actually physically got something
in your hands that you want to show then this is where the B camera, which is going to be your
b-roll, is going to come in handy when you're filming the talking headpiece at the same time.
So this is just one of the examples of using a multi-camera setup for talking about something
specific, and I've got the Rode Video Mic Pro+ here in my hands and it means that I can quickly
and easily switch between the A camera, which is this one and the B camera, which is this one, and
so as I'm talking about it I can point out certain things like the dials on the back,
the buttons on the back the dials? The buttons on the back. I'm literally just rambling at the
moment so I have no idea what I'm saying but just trying to give you an example of talking
about a microphone like this and having a talking head video at the same time.
So one of the things that you want to do once you've pressed record on both cameras
is clap or make some kind of loud noise so that you have a spike in your audio which will help
you synchronize both the clips together so that they're exactly the same time code, and
you'll see why this is going to come in handy a bit later on. The other thing is that if you
have two different cameras and you're not filming on the exact same cameras for both
the A cam and the B cam, you want to make sure that your settings are as close to each other
as possible because it's going to make it easier to match the footage and keep things consistent.
However, if you do use two different cameras then this is where FilmConvert can really help you out.
So as I said the sponsor of this video is FilmConvert and I've been using
FilmConvert Nitrate for a good few years now. I pretty much use it on every single video,
and the great thing about FilmConvert Nitrate is that you can color correct and color grade
your footage all in the FilmConvert Nitrate plugin, and it is essentially a film emulate,
a film emulation suite which gives you access to lots of different film stocks so you can create
a really classic film look to your footage, just basically taking away that digital look,
and it's just perfect for color correcting and color grading. The other plugin that FilmConvert
has is one called Cinematch, and this is perfect if you're shooting with a multi-camera setup
and you're not using cameras which are identical. It basically allows you to match both cameras
really quickly and it takes a lot of the manual work out of doing it without using Cinematch,
so that's a really great plugin to use if you're shooting with a multi-camera setup.
It has various different camera packs so if you also wanted to just emulate a certain look from
a different camera then that's something that you can also do with Cinematch. I've
dropped a link in the description so that you can check out FilmConvert and Cinematch
in more detail and if you use the code TAMARAG you'll get a 10% discount as well.
Once you've brought your clips into the editing software then you're going to want to sync up the
A cam and the B cam, and this is why we clapped at the beginning. So there are two ways that you can
do this, it depends what editing software you use, I'm using premiere. But the first way is to do it
manually and that's literally just by dragging the clip from the A camera and the B camera onto the
timeline and just lining up the audio looking for that spike where you clapped and then lining up
the audio. However in Premiere there is a feature where you can add both clips to the timeline
highlight both of them and then hit synchronize audio, and this will synchronize both the clips.
It'll look for similarities between the two clips, so having a clap just makes it a lot quicker and
a lot easier for Premiere to identify that. The great thing about Premiere, and I don't know if
other editing software does this because I've only ever just used Premiere, but when you shoot with a
multi-camera setup they have a feature in order to allow you to easily switch between two different
clips. So the first thing that you want to do is nest both those camera clips from the A cam and
the B cam, nest in a sequence and then you want to enable multi camera setup on those two clips,
then once you've done that you can switch your view to the multi-camera view.
And then what you want to do is just go through and watch the entire sequence
but as you do this you're going to be able to use two keys the number one key and the number two key
and switch between the A cam and the B cam, so when you're talking head piece,
if you're talking about this thing that you're holding or this thing that you're referring to,
if you want to zoom in on it, I say zoom in on it, if you want to show a close-up of it then
you can switch to the B cam and all you have to do whilst you're playing back the footage is just
toggle between keys one and two, so key one would be your A cam and key two would be your B cam,
which is your b-roll and that's a really great way to work with a multi-camera setup in Premiere Pro.
So the other thing that you can do is not have both clips on the timeline
at the same time and use the multi-camera feature. You could bring your talking head piece in,
edit it like you would with a single camera setup and then use the B camera to just cut
certain clips out and overlay them on the talking head piece like you would do with a single camera
setup, but the whole point in doing it with the multi-camera setup and using the multi-camera
setting in Premiere is that it just makes it a lot quicker and easier to just switch between
the two different cameras without having to manually go through and chop everything up.
So I hope that was useful. Do give the video a like if it was. In the
next video I'm going to talk about how to film the b-roll sequences and how to edit
everything together - the talking head piece and the b-roll sequences. There's
a lot that goes into the b-roll sequences so that one is going to be quite in-depth
but hopefully it will be very useful as well and with the b-roll sequences I'll be talking about
using a single camera setup and a multi-camera setup, so do subscribe if you want to see
that video. Otherwise, thanks for watching and I'll catch you guys next time you.