How to Maximize B Roll Shots for Your Video Shoot

In the context of a business video, "b roll" means what we see in addition to the talking heads.  Typical b roll includes shots of staff at work, interactions with customers, close-ups of products, wide shots of the business's exterior and signage, and before-and-after photos of service work.

B roll serves several important functions:

1) B roll illustrates the sound bites.  "Our restaurant has a warm atmosphere" sounds OK; seeing a slow pan of the restaurant's interior while hearing "our restaurant has a warm atmosphere" is even better (provided that the description is accurate).  If the sound bite is an employee saying, "I love helping customers," we can strengthen the idea by showing that employee in the act of helping a customer.

2) B roll gives us the opportunity to show rather than tell.  The old saying "A picture is worth a thousand words" generally holds true in a video.  Because visuals are often more effective than spoken descriptions, we can use them to replace sound bites, thus freeing up space for other sound bites that may be more difficult to illustrate.  In a 60 second video, every second is valuable real estate - but it turns out that we actually have 120 seconds with which to work: 60 seconds of audio and 60 seconds of visual.  We can show the restaurant's warm atmosphere, show the employee happily helping customers, and then use our sound bites to cover other ground, like "our restaurant has been around for over 40 years," and "each of our employees goes through extensive training."

Sometimes the video is better served by strengthening sound bites with matching b roll; sometimes it's improved by replacing sound bites with b roll - either way, b roll is a necessary component of an effective business video.

3) B roll covers edits.  Without b roll, an edited interview would appear disjointed and jerky.  Viewers would be distracted by the obvious edits, known as "jump cuts".  Occasionally jump cuts are used for aesthetic purposes, but generally they make business videos appear amateurish.  When preparing for your video shoot, think about what you want viewers to visualize when they picture your company.  If your business is a large restaurant with lots of decoration, you'll likely want wide shots of the interior and your pleasing atmosphere.  If your business is a tiny restaurant without much atmosphere, it's more likely that you'll want close-ups of food being cooked.  Regardless of the size of your restaurant, you'll definitely want shots of your best dishes, and happy diners.

Once you've decided on what your b roll should be, take the necessary steps to ensure that the videographer will be able to shoot everything on your list.  If you want to show a busy restaurant, schedule your shoot during the dinner rush and set aside a table where the videographer can use pro lighting without annoying your customers, and find some diners who won't mind being filmed.  If you want to show a construction crew wearing company t shirts, make sure everyone shows up to work wearing the t shirts (this seems obvious enough, but I've had multiple experiences where this did not happen).  Remember, good shots usually require a fair amount of even lighting, so be prepared to turn the lights up.