History Main / BRoll

'''Shizuku''': That's the BRoll footage we ''weren't'' going to use! \\

-->'''Lowell:''' Stringer was supposed to be shooting b-roll on street cops in New Orleans. What's with all the horses?

----

See also BRollRebus, where several of these shots are used in rapid succession; JumpCut, which is prevented by using B-Roll footage; and ThreeCameras, which allows for B-Roll footage to be filmed at the same time as the A-Roll (and has decreased the need for FixItInPost).

* ''Film/Attica'': Since the press was allowed inside the titular prison during the standoff of the riot, the siege is well-documented. The documentary uses that footage as B-Roll.

* ''Literature/FavoriteSon'': Senator Terry Fallon is shown (and later leaks to the press) B-Roll footage of Femme Fatale Sally Crain [[spoiler: issuing the signal to open fire]].

* ''Film/{{Amy}}'': The only original footage is bits of B-Roll that accompany some audio-only interviews. The rest is StockFootage.

See also BRollRebus, where several of these shots are used in rapid succession; JumpCut, which is prevented by using B-Roll footage; and ThreeCameras.

Sometimes the B-Roll footage is used as a backdrop for graphs, a screenshot of a document with the salient quote highlighted or some other visual aid, either full-screen with just a voiceover or on the big screen in the studio that's used for weather reports with a reporter standing off to one side.

See also BRollRebus, where several of these shots are used in rapid succession. And JumpCut, which is prevented by using B-Roll footage.

** "FDA Approves [[Phlebotinum Phlebotinil]] for Public Consumption": Pills whizzing by on a conveyor belt, pharmacists counting pills (almost always with an Abbott Laboratories pill-counting tray, recognizable from its aquamarine color and the company's lowercase-A logo).

# StockFootage: Recycled footage.

See also BRollRebus, where several of these shots are used in rapid succession.

# Pick-Up Shots: Footage filmed recorded after the principal photography (aka the production stage) to augment and complement footage already shot.

# Establishing Shots: Wide to extremely wide shots of buildings or landscapes with the purpose of establishing the context of a scene either at its beginning or end.
# Insert Shots: Opposed to the former, its purpose is to bring the viewer's attention to a particular detail within a scene, usually from a character's POV.

[[AC: New Media]]
* Over time, there have appeared ''very'' commonly repeated B-Roll clips on American news media, which by subject matter would be:

||align=center border=1 width=75%
||'''Commonly repeated B-Roll clips, by program subject matter'''||||
|| ''Piece Title'' || ''Clip Content'' ||
||"Obesity On The Rise in X" ||Anonymous chubby mid-sections (in slow-mo), which have garnered the nickname "Headless Fatties" ||
||"Lead Paint Found in Schools" ||Children at play in the schoolyard ||
||"Drug Use On the Rise" ||Any old rave. And by old, we mean TheNineties... ||
||"Internet Company On the Rise" ||Very dated StockFootage of the company's site on a CRT monitor; some older tech companies have videos of their site in Netscape Navigator from 1997.
||"Oil Prices Hit All Time High" ||Barrels of oil and shots of refineries, or shots of service stations, gas pumps, and people fueling their cars/trucks--bonus points if the service station is the Mobil on the corner of Beverly and La Cienega Boulevards, which has long been notorious in the UsefulNotes/LosAngeles area for extremely inflated gas prices that look sufficiently alarming in a news story ||
||"Airline Fares Expected to Increase" ||{{Landing Gear Shot}}s, people milling around in an airport ||
||"US Automaker Sells Subsidiary" ||Cars being assembled, new cars in showroom. Again, dated StockFootage tends to leap out at the viewer. ||
||"Flu Vaccine in Short Supply" ||Vials being produced in a factory, people getting injections ||
||"Mammograms Now Recommended for Younger Women" ||Women getting mammograms, doctors pointing to x-ray images ||
||"FDA Approves Phlebotinil for Public Consumption" ||Pills whizzing by on a conveyor belt, pharmacists counting pills (almost always with an Abbott Laboratories pill-counting tray, recognizable from its aquamarine color and the company's lowercase-A logo)||
||"Tension Between Countries Grows" ||Flags on poles, stock footage of bombastic military events and agitated and/or grim-faced faces at political assemblies ||

You get the idea.

The name is the actual term used by news people. It refers to the fact that this footage is usually spooled out from the second ("B") deck on a LinearEdit system. The "A roll" footage is the interview itself, the presenter's questions, and any directly documentary footage. B-Roll is usually generic, and can in fact often be StockFootage. News about financial stories tend to use the B-roll because the new labor figures aren't something you can really film, unlike people standing in a unemployment line or working in a factory. Faces are almost never shown in b-roll when the story deals with sensitive issues like child welfare, adultery, obese/fat people or any kind of sexual topic- like condoms or teen sex.

Sometimes the B-Roll footage is used as a backdrop for graphs, a screenshot of a document with the salient quote highlighted or some other visual aid, either full-screen with just a voiceover or on the big screen in the studio that's used for weather reports with a reporter standing off to one side.

It comes in four flavors:
# Establishing Shots: Wide to extremely wide shots of buildings or landscapes with the purpose of establishing the context of a scene either at its beginning or end.
# Insert Shots: Opposed to the former, its purpose is to bring the viewer's attention to a particular detail within a scene, usually from a character's POV.
# Pick-Up Shots: Footage filmed recorded after the principal photography (aka the production stage) to augment and complement footage already shot.
# StockFootage: Recycled footage.

See also BRollRebus, where several of these shots are used in rapid succession.

----

!! Examples:

[[AC: Anime & Manga]]
* ''Anime/FinalFantasyVIIAdventChildren'': Rufus and Kadaj's conversation before Kadaj summons Bahamut SIN reuses clips from the opening of the film as they talk in a manner similar to B-Roll, the footage sometimes matching what they're talking about, sometimes not. These sequences, as well as other clips from the film, have since been reused in subsequent ''Compilation'' entries and related media, particularly ''Crisis Core''.

[[AC: Films -- Live-Action]]
* ''Film/{{Amy}}'': The only original footage is bits of B-Roll that accompany some audio-only interviews. The rest is StockFootage.

[[AC: Live-Action TV]]
* ''Series/DragonsDen'': The footage of the contestants at their home/business.
* ''Series/{{Fringe}}'': InUniverse, the series technically happens in Boston, Massachusetts. In reality, the set is in New York, thus making it a case of CaliforniaDoubling. The only shots filmed in Boston are some establishing shots edited onto the main footage à la B-Roll.

\\

** Edutubers, i.e., youtubers whose content is education-oriented. Footage of the thing they are explaining ([=DRONE=] shots of a building, stuff filmed from a microscope, etc.) is ubiquitous.

* Some types of Website/{{Youtube}} channels are prone to using this. Remember that TropesAreTool so, for this kind of content, B-Roll footage actually enriches or is key for the format. For example:

See also BRollRebus, where several of these shots are used in rapid succession.

||"FDA Approves Phlebotinil for Public Consumption" ||Pills whizzing by on a conveyor belt, pharmacists counting pills ||

||"Obesity On The Rise in X" ||Anonymous chubby mid-sections (in slow-mo) ||

||"Oil Prices Hit All Time High" ||Barrels of oil and shots of refineries, or shots of service stations, gas pumps, and people fueling their cars/trucks ||

See also BRollRebus, where several of these shots are used in rapid succession.
----
<<|{{News Broadcast}}|>>

||'''Commonly repeated B Roll clips, by program subject matter'''||||

The name is the actual term used by news people. It refers to the fact that this footage is usually spooled out from the second ("B") deck on a LinearEdit system. The "A roll" footage is the interview itself, the presenter's questions, and any directly documentary footage. BRoll is usually generic, and can in fact often be StockFootage. News about financial stories tend to use the B-roll because the new labor figures aren't something you can really film, unlike people standing in a unemployment line or working in a factory. Faces are almost never shown in b-roll when the story deals with sensitive issues like child welfare, adultery, obese/fat people or any kind of sexual topic- like condoms or teen sex.

||'''Commonly repeated BRoll clips, by program subject matter'''||||

<<|{{News Broadcast}}|>>

||"Tension Between Countries Grows" ||Flags on poles, stock footage of bombastic military events and agitated and/or grim-faced moods at political assemblies ||

||"Tension Between Countries Grows" ||Flags on poles, stock footage of bombastic military events and agitated and/or grim-faced political assemblies ||

||"Obesity On The Rise in America" ||Anonymous chubby mid-sections (in slow-mo) ||

||"Internet Company On the Rise" || Very dated StockFootage of the company's site on a CRT monitor; some older tech companies have videos of their site in Netscape Navigator from 1997.

See also BRollRebus, where several of these shots are used in rapid succession. Also see this [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHun58mz3vI video]] from CharlieBrooker, which delightfully skewers this kind of reporting.