Why Is B-Roll So Important In Video Marketing?

You’ve probably seen B-roll thousands of times now, but the chances are that you’ve never really taken notice of it. It’s part of nearly every memorable marketing video, but audiences rarely pay much attention to it – and that’s by design.

B-roll footage is the unsung star of creating any compelling video. These nondescript bits of footage are often the key ingredient to making a video feel that much more engaging. Not only are they a valuable tool for any filmmaking, but they’re also vital in video marketing for entrepreneurs. 

But what is B-roll footage, anyway? And what makes it such a key ingredient to any entrepreneur’s video promotion strategy? 

What is a B-Roll?

A B-roll is essentially any footage that isn’t part of your primary or A-roll footage. Think of it as the extra content you film that isn’t included in your main project.

For example, let’s say you’re recording an interview with the CEO of a hot new startup. Your A-roll would be the interview itself, where the subject is speaking directly to the camera. Meanwhile, your B-roll would be any other footage that you gather during the shoot, such as employees working around the office or customers interacting with staff. While A-roll footage is most often carefully scripted and planned, B-rolls typically capture raw and unscripted moments.

Most filmmakers use B-rolls to add variety to their A-roll footage by intermittently splicing B-rolls into their primary footage. B-rolls are usually captured by having a film crew go the scene and record the current goings-on – such as customer conversations or employees at work.

Why Are B-rolls So Important for Video Marketing?

If B-rolls are so simple, what makes them such a massive part of creating high-performing marketing videos? It turns out that many factors make B-rolls an essential component of developing engaging video, especially for budding entrepreneurs. Here are five reasons why this extra footage is so vital for good filmmaking.

1) Scaling

Videos are hard to produce – that’s just a fact. Not only does it take plenty of time and effort to script, film, and edit a video, but the whole process can be highly costly as well. That’s why filming B-rolls is an important step to save costs and cut down the time spent filming while still creating a high-quality film in the end result. 

For one thing, B-rolls are often much easier to film than A-rolls. After all, they don’t require you to produce scripts or carefully coordinate the action. Instead, all you need to do is set up your camera crew and let them take care of the rest to film the action they see around them. 

Filming a healthy number of B-rolls will help you maximize the value that you get from your shoot. Adding your B-rolls into your primary A-roll footage can help you extend the length of your video or cover up any production issues that might arise in the A-roll. Even if you don’t use all your B-rolls in this project, nothing is stopping you from reusing B-rolls in other videos. This flexibility is vital for entrepreneurs who need all the flexibility they can get as they work on scaling their video marketing efforts without breaking the bank.

2) Making the Video More Compelling

No one likes staring at the same thing for ten minutes straight. B-rolls are an excellent method for taking otherwise dry videos and making them feel more varied and exciting. For example, a presenter video might focus on the speaker showing off a product in the A-roll, but then it can periodically cut to B-rolls showing customers using the product or employees working around the office.

Using B-roll footage in this way is a surefire method to keep productions compelling and avoiding monotony. 

3) Make Videos Feel More Authentic

You know the feeling of watching an advertisement and knowing that every word and shot has been carefully scripted and edited to present the subject in the best possible light? Such productions might be well-made, but there’s no denying that they can sometimes feel manufactured.

B-rolls provide an opportunity to take these videos and inject them with a shot of authenticity. While the A-roll may be intricately produced to convey the right ideas, B-rolls showing employees passionately developing solutions or customers being delighted by their products can make the video feel more authentic. After all, nothing can replace a customer’s genuine smile of delight captured in B-roll.

4) Turn Your Video Into an Exciting Narrative

It’s one thing for a speaker to talk about their work ethic, but it’s another thing entirely to see them at work. B-rolls showing your film subjects going about their regular duties allows you to take a promising A-roll and turn it into an engaging story. For example, you can strategically insert B-roll into an interview or presenter video to illustrate the points being discussed and emphasize the main message.

5) Cover Up Any Editing Issues In the Main Footage

Perhaps someone wandered into your shot while you were filming the A-roll, or maybe your speaker stuttered his lines. These minor errors don’t have to spell destruction for your video. Instead, you can insert some relevant B-roll to cover up these issues without worrying about complicated editing. This simple yet highly effective solution can save time and energy while producing your video without compromising overall video quality.

When you’re new to video marketing, you might be tempted to focus solely on the main events of your A-rolls. However, you can’t afford to leave out B-rolls. B-roll footage provides the flexibility and scalability that budding entrepreneurs require to produce excellent videos without going over budget or spending too much time on the project. Next time you have a film shoot, be sure not to neglect the little things and capture plenty of B-rolls!

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Torrey Tayenaka

Torrey Tayenaka is the co-founder and CEO at Sparkhouse, an Orange County based video production agency. He is often asked to contribute expertise in publications like Entrepreneur, Single Grain and Forbes. Sparkhouse is known for transforming video marketing and advertising into real conversations.Rather than hitting the consumer over the head with blatant ads, Sparkhouse creates interesting, entertaining and useful videos that enrich the lives of his clients’ customers. In addition to Sparkhouse, Torrey has also founded the companies Eva Smart Shower, Litehouse & Forge54.

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