B-roll

A transcript-only cut silently drops every clip without words. Don't.

Spot it

• A clip with 0 words is B-roll.
• A clip whose "words" are song lyrics or another language (radio, a café) is B-roll too: check what the transcript says before treating it as speech.
• All clips recorded in sequence → keep the recorded order; B-roll sits where it was shot.

Watch it (the step people skip)

Pulling 5 frames per clip led to bad cuts. Look at 2 frames per second (a contact sheet, 8 per row, small) for every B-roll clip, and read what the creator says right before and after it. Questions:

• What is the action? Where does it start and resolve?
• Is there a natural transition? Example from a real edit: the camera goes into a backpack (frames go black) in one clip, and the next clip starts black and comes out of the bag onto an airport table. Cutting black-to-black makes a free, perfect transition; cutting by fixed length destroyed it.
• Which part is steady and well framed? Which part is out of focus or the operator fumbling?
• Is it vertical (phone held upright)? It will crop to the middle in a horizontal/4:3 frame: flag it.