Shooting B Roll / C Roll

[ophelia]

I would like to know how the pros on this forum decide what makes good B roll during a non-storyboarded shoot.

[Grinner Hester]

Content, framing, lighting… there are many things that can go into a great shot. Non-scripted requires that firstt hing I mentioned…content so you can put a story together in post. You’ll always shoot more with non-scripted than you would just grabbing takes for a scripted piece. Ten times more. You’ll need it and much of the time the shot you need to stitch two points together isn’t a shot at all. I have leaned on slow motion swish pans I was lucky to have before. The minute you stop recording is when something significant happens. Tape is cheap. Roll.

[composite1]

I would add that whether scripted or non-scripted you should always have a basic shot list. A shot list will make you focus on getting your intended shots. The side benefit is as you’re getting your intended shots, you’ll see stuff that will make you take a different approach on individual takes and you’ll pick up extra shots you wouldn’t have thought of. Before you know it, you’ll have a lot of extra shots that believe me will come in handy when you least expect it! Though editors hate to see piles of tapes (flash cards or whatever) dumped on them, they’ll thank you later when the find there’s plenty of B-Roll to cover or make the story that much more interesting. And yeah, tape is cheap. Keep shooting.

[ophelia]

Thank you both very much for the fast and informative responses!

[Author]

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