Filmmaking Methods & Practices – B-Roll
B-roll is secondary footage, used to help illustrate the story in a visual manner. B-roll consists of scenic footage, extreme close-ups of objects or faces, action pans and still images animated in post. We all, in production, love b-roll.
However, there is an issue with excessive b-roll, especially shot on location. If you have a production that needs to be turned around rather quickly, shooting a lot of b-roll can take up tape space, battery life, capture time and hard drive space. A filmmaker must balance the need for images with real time production scheduling. This is particularly important for shooters covering events, protests, rallies and doing multiple interviews in one day. Yes, you can always buy more tape, charge your batteries, but consider your shooter’s arms and your editor’s schedule to turn around a fast short piece. If your editor has an hour or two to make a 3 minute production piece, factor in your capture time. Captures occur in real time – if you’ve shot 2 hours of footage, its going to take 2 or more hours minimum to capture it. Unless, of course, you have shot logs.
Another option is to shoot tapeless. There are several cameras out on the market that offer tapeless editing. The Panasonic P2 shots are recorded directly to a memory card. Direct To Tapeâ„¢ technology by Firestore allows for prosumer cameras to record directly to a hard drive device. This cuts out the capture time, but it still doesn’t address knowing your shots. Know what your b-roll is and what timecode it is at, and you’re editor will love you!
B-roll for longer productions, or for your tape library, is crucial. Keeping good records of your tapes in your personal library will help you decide if you need to go out and re-shoot b-roll you’re missing in your current project. Consider using an Excel spreadsheet or FileMaker Pro database to keep a searchable log of your footage.
B-roll often includes images, animated ala Ken Burns or The Kid Stays In The Picture. Its important when looking for images to keep the imagery focused. Ambient or abstract images are excellent backgrounds for titles and compositing layers. There are excellent stock houses that offer great deals on images. Dreamstime.com and Fotolia.com are both great sources, through which I sell my stock photography, but there are many other options out there. These just happen to be the most economical.
Remember to check with your lawyer, (yes, you need one, but I’ll talk about that in another post), about licensing and copyrights. All footage, images and music need to be licensed or original content. All of your actors and/or documentary subjects need to sign a release form, as well as any locations you shoot that are covered under any copyright or trademark laws – for example, shooting some statuary requires a license to broadcast it on the air. Weird, but true. Legal matters will sink your production faster than a swiss cheese boat in boiling water.
Low budget filmmakers have another option for images – hire a photographer to shoot the stills you need, in locations and on themes. Digital photography has made the turn-around time for images almost instantaneous. Sending out a photographer for a day or two is helpful when specific images are required. Licensing can get expensive and original works are always an easy work-around.
B-roll is absolutely necessary, but must be budgeted within the production schedule and kept track of, for easy access. Shoot with precision and you will find yourself saving time and money on the post production.
Peace,
Melissa
