Online Roving Ranger Video Production

7. Shoot B-roll

B-roll is the video that plays while the narrator is not on the screen. It can be video that was shot a few years ago or it can be video you’ll shoot later today. The only important thing is that your video tells you story well. There are a lot of still images that can tell your story well. When you cannot shoot appropriate video, you can rely on the stills with an accompanying pan, tilt, or zoom over the still shot. That goes a long way toward allowing the stills to blend in with your video.

Advising someone on how to shoot quality b-roll might be the most important challenge I’ll face when I start teaching these lessons in person. I started shooting b-roll in 1970 with a Super 8 movie camera. None of it was ever used for anything other than entertaining my family with memories gone by. These days anything you shoot could be used as b-roll in an actual production.

Assuming you haven’t learned the basics as a child, it will be difficult to pass them on to you here. My best advice is to watch a lot of professional video, shoot your own video, and take a hard look at the differences. Problems I’ve seen with amateur video have some commonalities. I’ll mention a few of them.

Many newcomers to the video (or photography) field feel their subject should be centered. A centered subject, whether it be a human or a dead tree, is often more boring than a subject that is at least somewhat off-center. This has been so well studied by photographers that they have developed what they call “the rule of thirds”. That rule, at its simplest, says that a subject 1/3 of the way in from any frame edge will be more interesting to the viewer. If it falls at point that is 1/3 of the way in from two sides, it will be of great interest. Therefore if you draw lines across your frame 1/3 of the way in from all sides, it is best to put the focal point of your subject at one of the places where the lines intersect. If your subject is a waterfall that is filling the space between the top and the bottom of the frame be aware that the intersecting lines will still draw greater interest. If you can put the top of the falls at the intersecting lines, the image will be more dramatic.

(A rule of thirds example will be placed here eventually.)

Another tell-tale sign of amateur video is that they tend to center human subjects’ heads despite the fact that they are leaving a large amount of dead space above their heads. Centering human heads seems to be so ingrained in us that we continue to do it even after we learn how bad it is in terms of video or photography composition. I’ll leave the reasons for that to the psychologists.

All I have to say is never, ever, ever center your primary subject without reconsidering framing at least twice. Always ask yourself if there is space at the top of the frame that does not help tell your story. If you do that, I think you will be surprised at how often you re-frame your subject. Follow the rule of thirds and you might even frame it yet again.

Daryl Jennings comments: Some plant or animal material is only available for a short period of time, and at a particular time of the year. Don’t pass up shooting interesting plant or animal b-roll, thinking that, “I can shoot that stuff later.” You may not see it later, shoot it now! It would be great if we all carried a camera around with us all of the time. Just be sure that’s OK with your supervisor before you start doing it.

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Tom Cawley
Online Roving Ranger Video Production
tom@rovingranger.com