B-Roll is a secondary visual (image or video clip) that enhances your main video by adding visual depth. It overlays your content to create tension, emphasize points, or provide context.
For example, if you have a video discussing the solar system, you can incorporate visuals of each planet into the B-Roll to overlap your original explainer video.
Pictory gives this option to add and remove B-Rolls when you are editing your video. It is a two-step process where you will need to start with transcribing the video before customizing it with B-rolls. Please read on for more details on how to add B-rolls to your video.
Step 1: Transcribe your video
To begin, click Proceed on the 'Edit video using Text' option which is the third box on the homepage.
You can upload videos using 2 different methods.
The next step after you upload your video is transcription where you can edit your script, remove filler words, remove silences and so on.
After you finish editing the transcription, click on 'Customize video' to go to the next step — the storyboard, where you can add B-Rolls and edit your video scene by scene.
Step 2: Add B-roll
On the storyboard, select the scene where you want to add the visual.
Go to 'Visuals' on the left panel > Go to the Visuals library and enter a keyword in the text field to search for a relevant visual from our stock library that will serve as your B-roll visual.
You can also go to the 'Textures' tab to add textures and solid colors instead of images and video clips.
OR if you already have suitable visuals you want to use as B-rolls, then you can upload them yourself under 'My uploads' tab as illustrated below.
Next, click on the visual (either the uploaded visual or from the stock library) to apply it to the scene.
The applied visual will now overlap the visual in the original video for that particular scene.
Please note that any scene linked to this scene (where the b-roll visual is applied) will also show the b-roll, as linked scenes by design display the same visual.
How to Remove B-Roll
When you have added a B-Roll visual, you will see a 'Remove Visual' button on that scene.
Click on 'Remove visual' and the B-Roll will be removed from that scene and other scenes that are linked to this one.
Points to Remember:
B-Roll visual is available only in the Video Editing Scenario.
Ensure you complete everything on the transcription step before clicking 'Customize video' to be taken to the storyboard to add your B-Roll. If you click 'Previous' on the storyboard to go back to the transcription step, you will lose all the edits that you made, including the B-rolls you added.