The importance of b-roll

A few weeks ago I shot a case-study report on the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence and the network switches they use. I shot in several locations at UC Berkeley and my subjects were incredibly helpful and accommodating.

The main interview took place at SETI's lab. There were a lot of silly little space-oriented things around the room along with actual scientific instruments. After the interview was done, I took a closer look at the opposite side of the room and found some toy aliens. What better to represent SETI's mission? I also noticed a bunch of equations on a whiteboard, the perfect symbol of scientists at work. I had a lot more shooting to do, so I packed up my tripod and get ready to go, but then I grabbed a few seconds of each of these with a handheld camera.

I didn't edit the piece myself. I turned it over to our video producer in Boston, Nick Barber. I sent him 17 minutes of material, and a lot of it was this kind of extra "b-roll" footage. Those little handheld shots made it into the piece and I think it added a lot. (Plus, I couldn't resist the stunning view from the Space Sciences Lab. It was a gorgeous day. Some of that made it in, too.)