(crinkling packet)
(crunching potato chips)
- Oh, hi guys.
One of the most important things that you can do
for your video is to have good B roll,
so let's take a look at some ways
to get the best, dang B roll you can get.
(dynamic uplifting music)
Alright guys, in my first video of this year,
I talked about trying to do some good with this channel
and this is my first good deed of the year
and no, it's not eating potato chips,
but this is a company called One in Six
and it's actually run by a guy named Josh Monahan
and he realized that one in six Americans,
even Americans don't know where their next meal
is coming from, so what he does
is that every small bag that's sold of these chips,
he donates five cents and every bigger bag,
he donates 10 cents to the Food Bank,
I think he said that every one dollar
in a food bank can make five meals,
so I really like it when companies do this,
'cause this isn't a non-profit company,
they're still in the business of making money,
but at the same time they're giving away
and the best way to do that is to make a good product
and these are actually really, really good,
so check out One in Six snacks,
that's my first good deed of the year.
Alright, so what is B roll?
- [Narrator] In film and television production,
B-roll, B roll, B-reel or B reel
is supplemental or alternative footage
intercut with the main shot.
The term A-roll referring to the main footage
has fallen out of usage.
- So for example, if I'm talking about
snowboarding behind an ATV and how fun it is,
this right here is the A roll,
we don't really call it the A roll,
but it would be the A roll
and then these are the B roll clips,
showing how I'm suiting up,
getting ready to snowboard behind an ATV,
these are the B roll clips and now we're back to the A roll,
so that's what the B roll clips are,
so what's the point of B roll?
Well, it's to put visuals to the things
that you're talking about,
in an ideal world, your B roll fits really well
with the things that are being talked about
or the overall theme of the video,
it's so much better to show and tell,
instead of just telling the things
that you're trying to get across.
Usually for me,
I like to make my B roll really nice and cinematic,
that's kind of my style,
but not all B roll has to be this epic,
120 frames per second, cinematic eye candy,
as long as the B roll fits your video, then that's good
and it doesn't have to be 120 frames per second
like a lot of people think
and there's nothing wrong with 120 frames per second,
I just wanna say that you don't have to use it,
there's all sorts of different ways of showing B roll,
find out what's the best way for your video
and do it that way.
B roll should enhance your storylines,
so if I'm talking about how I love traveling to warm places,
I'm gonna show clips from Maui or somewhere like that
and not clips from Iceland, where it's not warm
and okay, that's really obvious,
but sometimes it's not as obvious
what kind of B roll to show
and a lot of people show just unrelated B roll
and that gets boring really fast,
the brain kind of tunes out,
because it doesn't understand why are you showing this clip,
this has nothing to do with the things
that you're talking about,
unrelated B roll can be really distracting,
so you need to really think about what fits your storyline
and it doesn't have to be just you know,
literal B roll of the thing that you're talking about,
you can symbolize things
or you can have an overall narrative over time
or you can use things like passage of time,
this is one of the things that a lot of vloggers
kind of miss out in their videos,
they go from one place to the next
without any kind of B roll in between
and B roll is a really good way of just showing
that time has passed from this point to the next,
so if you're traveling by car,
get a few shots of you driving in the car,
if you're flying somewhere, a few shots in there,
anything to kind of link the two things together,
timelapse can also be a really great way
to just show passage of time, it just, you know,
the speeding up of things, just shows that, okay,
time has passed now and then you're in a new place.
Okay, so how can we make sure that we get
the best B roll for every single video we make?
I'm gonna give you guys a few tips
and I'm gonna use the snowboarding, ATV-ing,
that we did with Peter as kind of an example for these.
Number one, and I'm always talking about this
is planning it, plan your shootout,
plan what kind of B roll you need
and how you're gonna get it,
what kind of equipment are you gonna use to get that B roll?
So think about your storyline, what's going on,
if you're doing an interview of a surfer,
you're gonna have some surfing footage in there,
maybe he's waxing his board, anything like that,
maybe you're talking about your hometown,
so show some clips of your hometown
or in this case, we were ATV-ing behind a snowboard,
so there was just a ton of different B roll we could get,
setting up for it and actually riding around,
all that stuff, but you also need to plan
how you're gonna capture that,
so what kind of gear are you gonna use?
For example, with the snowboarding, we used some GoPros
and then we had some GorillaPods just stationary,
so we could just drive by,
'cause we didn't have anybody else filming us,
so we really had to think about
how we were gonna get enough footage,
even though nobody else is filming us.
If we would have gone there, for example,
without GoPros, without thinking about it,
we would have missed a nice bit of B roll
getting those GoPro action shots,
so plan out what kind of shots you need
and how you're gonna get those shots
and number two is coverage, I've talked about this before,
don't just film random shots, film them kind of in sequence,
film a wide shot, film some medium shots,
film some close-ups, film all sorts of different angles,
so that you have enough, when you go to edit,
you can never have too much B roll,
so again, with our snowboarding,
we could have just filmed the actual snowboarding,
but no, we filmed Peter suiting up, me suiting up,
putting on our helmets, getting the tow rope ready,
putting on the snowboard, turning on the ATV,
all that stuff we filmed, because the more B roll we have,
the nicer edit we can make
and the better story we can tell,
instead of just going from me talking and vlogging
to all of a sudden, being behind a snowboard
with this nice build up to the action,
you're gonna have a way better time in your edit,
'cause you're not gonna be struggling
to find the right shots,
or you're gonna be struggling,
because you don't have enough shots
and you're also gonna be telling a better story.
Number three, be creative,
just like Peter was talking about in his video last week,
figure out some really cool, different kinds of shots,
once you've gotten your basic kind of coverage shots,
think about what kind of interesting, creative angles
you can get, we were trying to rack our brains,
where we could stick the GoPro
and it wasn't really working out,
but go through that process of thinking
about what kind of creative angles you can get,
'cause those are sometimes the coolest shots
in the whole video
and because they're not your typical shots,
people are kind of wowed by those shots,
just like the intro on this video,
where I open up the chip bag,
I actually thought about that
and went through the trouble of putting it all together,
I'll show you the little rig here,
this is the rig, that I used to get that intro shot,
I put some plastic wrap in here,
so it wouldn't get my lens all dirty
and then I opened it up
and I could still film at the same time,
so I went to the trouble of just for that one shot
rigging up this whole thing and I think it pays off,
I think it looks cool,
it's an interesting way to open up the video,
so in your B roll, think about how you can be creative.
Number four, I would say take your time with B roll,
a lot of people just kind of rush with B roll
and they're, "Oh, that's good enough,"
do not say, "That's good enough,"
B roll is probably one of the most important things
in your video, this is really the place
where your footage has an opportunity to shine,
where you can really flex your creative muscles
and show what you're capable of,
in any given portfolio or reel,
when people show off kind of their work,
it's all the B roll,
you're not showing these talking faces very much,
because the B roll is really the high quality stuff,
so don't rush it, this is where you have
your chance to shine and kind of show what you're made of.
If it doesn't look good, switch it up,
try something different, keep working at it,
until you have some really nice looking B roll
and one of the big things here is to use light properly,
that's really gonna help you out,
so trying different angles to work with available light,
'cause a lot of times, we don't have lights set up,
use that light and you're gonna get really nice B roll.
With B roll, do not say, "Good enough,"
keep working at it, make it the best it can be
and number five, always leave time for B roll.
B roll can sometimes be like the last thing
on the to do list, like alright, let's just get some B roll,
we only have five more minutes,
let's just do this really quickly
and that can be one of the worst things for your videos,
because the B roll is so important
and I'm guilty of this, especially with YouTube,
there's so many times where I'm just wishing
that I had some more B roll
to make it a little bit more interesting
or to show what's going on,
but because I didn't leave enough time,
I don't have enough B roll,
so make sure you're prioritizing B roll,
especially if you have a crew that you're working with,
make sure there's enough time to shoot B roll
in between the interviews or whatever else you're doing.
So there's some kind of practical tips
on how to get really good B roll,
there's all sorts of creative stuff, that we can do,
think about composition and lighting
and lens choices and all those things,
but these are the practical things
that you can kind of ensure
that you're getting the best possible B roll
for every single video that you're working on,
you wanna be consistent
and these things are gonna keep you consistent.
Alright guys, that's it for this video,
if you have any cool ideas, tips, techniques,
comment them down below,
I just love it when we can kind of all learn together
and bounce ideas off each other,
so make sure to comment down below, hit the Like button,
subscribe to the channel, be a part of this community, guys,
enjoy the filmmaking process
and go get some of those Travel Feels.
(dynamic uplifting music)