When we find an interesting video project, we like to point it out to our readers. Videomaker's Facebook friend Charlie Essers (@PushEject) recently shared a corporate video he made to help promote a new craft beer brewery in Los Angeles. I thought this was a great example of the effective use of B-roll, so I wanted to share: Welcome to the Golden Road You can see some excellent use of B-roll in this video, with shots of people enjoying the product are interspliced between interviews with the brewery founders.
As you know, B-roll is essential for a number of reasons. First, it helps break up the monotony caused by a series of talking head interviews. There's not much visual interest in watching people talk about the. Second, B-roll is useful for hiding cuts and splices. Oftentimes, when you're shooting an interview, your subject will ramble on or pepper their responses with "um"s and "you know"s. Obviously, you'll want to cut out the chaff to make a more compelling, dynamic interview. But if you don't have good B-roll to smooth over the transition, you'll get something akin to Homer Simpson's infamous interview on the fictional magazine show "Rock Bottom."
Finally, in this video, you can see that the B-roll thematically fits the purpose of the video, promoting the Golden Road Brewery. If you haven't shot enough B-roll before you start editing, you might be forced to fill the gaps with images that don't help bolster your video's point — for example, random crowd shots or street scenes. In this video, every second of B-roll helps to drive home the goal by showing happy customers using the product. Fancy work!
