Shooting “B-Roll” is a mistake.
“B-roll” shots are an editing short-cut from news-gathering in the ’80s. Crews on the run learned to grab over-the-shoulder shots of the newsperson looking serious or flames in a burning house to save time in editing, which took forever on linear reel-to-reel video decks. Over the next 40 years, “gotta get b-roll” filtered down Truth with a capital T from trainer to trainee, and from teachers to students, oozing its way gradually into other forms of video and film shooting.
But the whole concept of b-roll is fatally flawed. I’m not saying you shouldn’t shoot … Read the rest
