- Want to learn about one of the biggest
video creation techniques that all creators use?
Adding B rolls to your videos
can single-handedly take your videos from looking like this,
(upbeat music)
to this.
(upbeat music)
This is a super important technique
to master as a video creator,
and it's going to take your videos to the next level.
Hey everyone, I'm Teresa with InVideo,
and today I'm going to be talking about B roll.
If you're new to video editing,
you might not be familiar with the term B roll,
but I guarantee you've seen it before
because it's used in every YouTube video documentary
or basically every video you've ever seen.
I'm going to tell you a little bit about what B roll is,
what it's used for, how you can plan and shoot it,
and how to edit it.
Make sure you stick around to the end,
because I'm going to share an amazing B roll hack
that I think you're really going to like.
All right, let's get started.
First things first, what is B roll?
The concept is pretty simple,
the name B roll dates back to
when all the videos were shot on film.
A video editor would literally have
two different rolls of film,
an A roll, which was the main footage or the main story,
and the B roll, which was supplementary footage.
So basically B roll is the footage
that supplements your main story.
So let's look at a few ways that B roll is used.
A lot of the time
B roll goes over footage of someone talking.
So it allows you to see a visual
of what they're talking about
while you still hear their voice in the background.
That's probably the most traditional way to use B roll,
but it's not the only way,
you can also have the talking part of the video first,
kind of finish telling the part of the story,
and then have a sequence of B roll,
usually with music behind it.
(upbeat music)
And just to give you a better idea,
here are five examples of B roll uses
that you've probably seen before.
In a recipe video,
the A roll might be someone talking to the camera
explaining how to make the recipe,
while the B roll would be
the actual footage of them cooking.
In a travel vlog,
the A roll would be the footage of the subject
kind of walking around, talking to the camera,
the B roll would be the actual footage
of the place that they're traveling around.
For a music video, the A roll is usually
the musicians playing the song,
while the B roll is telling a story,
usually based on the lyrics of the song.
In a documentary, the A roll would be the interview footage
and the B roll would be something that
visualizes what the interviewee is saying.
And finally, for a tutorial
like this one that you're watching,
the A roll is this shot, me talking to the camera
and the B roll might be something like me shooting videos
or me editing videos,
'cause that's what this video is about.
So hopefully those examples give you some ideas of
how you can use B roll for your own brand
and your own videos.
So whenever you're planning to make a video,
make sure you also plan to shoot some B roll.
B roll can be you know, shots of the scenery around you,
the nature or wherever you are,
you could have a friend take some videos of you.
It can really be anything
as long as it's relevant to your story.
Now that you know, a little bit about B roll is,
let's take a look at how you can start using it
in your videos,
using a free online editing software called InVideo.
InVideo is very straightforward, very user-friendly,
a lot easier than some of the complex
video editing softwares that are out there.
So even if you've never edited a video before,
I guarantee you'll be able to add B roll to your videos
using InVideo.
So just go ahead and open up your browser
and type in invideo.io.
Go ahead and sign up for a free account
if you haven't already done so,
and then that's going to bring you to a homepage
that looks like this.
Now for this tutorial,
I'm going to make a YouTube style video.
So I'm going to go ahead and select the 16 by 9 option.
You also have the option to make a square video
which you could post on your Instagram feed,
or a tall 9 by 16 video,
which would be like a TikTok or an IGTV.
I'm going to go ahead and select Blank Canvas
but there's also a ton of pre-made templates
that you can check out.
For now I'm just going to hit Blank Canvas, Make a Video
and then you can go ahead and upload the videos
that you want to use.
So this is a video of me telling a story
about traveling to Rome, so I'm uploading that video,
and then I'm also uploading some videos that I took in Rome,
and I'm going to use those as B roll.
So the first thing you want to do is edit your A roll,
'cause that's going to go underneath.
So I'm taking my talking video
and dragging it onto the background here,
and then that's going to pull up the video trimmer,
so I'm going to find
where I start the first sentence of the story,
and then I'm going to find where I end it and then hit done.
So now that clip has been added to my timeline,
and I'm going to go ahead and delete this title
'cause I don't need it right now,
so just select it and then hit the trash can icon,
on the right-hand side of your screen,
then come down to your timeline
and hit the Plus Scene button and then Blank Scene.
I'm going to drag my A roll footage onto there again,
and this time I'm trimming the second sentence.
Now I had a really long pause
in between those two sentences,
so I'm just cutting out that pause.
But now, as you can see, when I play the video
there's a little jump between the two clips.
So we're going to use B roll to cover that up.
At this point I'm talking about visiting the Colosseum.
So I'm just going to find a clip that shows the Colosseum
and that's going to be my B roll, so here's the clip.
I'm going to drag that right on top of my A roll clip,
and that brings up a screen that says
what would you like to do?
So select, add as a layer, don't replace it, add as a layer
and then trim it like we've been doing, hit done
and now you can see on the timeline,
it's on top of the other video,
and usually you're not going to want to hear the audio
that comes from your B roll video,
because you're going to be hearing the talking behind it.
So to mute the audio, just go ahead and click on your video
come over here to video edit,
and then you'll see that there's a button here
that says volume on,
and if you click that, it turns the volume off.
So you'll still be able to hear me talking,
but you'll see the video of the Colosseum.
So I'm going to make it bigger,
so it covers the whole video underneath.
All right, then one more quick tip,
a lot of B roll you see has this really smooth motion to it,
and that gives it a really cinematic feel,
so when you're editing,
go ahead and put your B roll in slow motion,
and that helps give it a smoother look.
So click on your clip,
it's going to bring up all these options
on the right hand side, click Playback Speed
and then pull the slider back,
I'm going to pull it back to 0.5
and that's how you put a video in slow motion.
All right.
So now I told you I had an amazing B roll hack,
that I was going to share with you,
so here it is.
InVideo has a library of beautiful stock footage
that you can use as B roll.
So if you're using InVideo,
you don't even have to shoot your own footage
or if you forgot to shoot B roll footage,
that's totally fine
because you have access to all these amazing videos.
So just come over to the tabs here on the side,
click the one that says video
and then this pulls up the library
of over 8 million royalty-free images and videos.
Some of the videos are included with the paid plan,
but even if you're using the free version of InVideo,
that's fine,
just uncheck the box right here
and you'll see all of the free options.
Just look how amazing these are.
So I could make a video call of
the top travel adventures on my bucket list,
and I could talk about how
I want to go paddle boarding in the ocean,
and then even though I've never been
paddle boarding in the ocean,
so I've never taken any videos of that.
I can use this beautiful clip in my video
because it's on Invideo for me.
So you add these videos in the same way we did before,
just drag them on top of your A roll,
and then you can trim it,
or you could also add it as its own scene.
Another quick tip, if you're ever stuck on something
or if you just have a question about anything,
there's a 24/7 chat window
right at the bottom left corner here,
so you can literally just click that any time
and type in whatever question you have,
so that's super helpful.
All right, once you've got your video completed
with your amazing B roll,
go ahead and click the button in the top right-hand corner
that says Download and Share,
and that's going to load a final preview of your video
and then you can download it.
All right, so that's a quick rundown on B roll
and how you can use it in InVideo.
If this video was helpful for you,
make sure you hit that like button,
share it with anyone else you know,
who's interested in video editing
and subscribe to this channel for more videos.
I hope this helped you on your video editing journey
and I will see you in the next one.
Bye.
(logo whooshing)