B Roll

B Roll is a term used in film to describe the section of the film that wasn't necessary to the actual footage. B roll is additional footage that is worked into the main footage of a documentary or interview. An "A" deck refers to the tape containing the meat of the information, such the interviews and important material, whereas the B deck contains additional information such as possible interview commentary, questions or certain descriptions from the person that is being interviewed. B Roll can help to make your documentary stronger, with additional information you wouldn't have had otherwise.

B roll is often played around with by editors, to help improve the documentary. Often times, you will hear actors and actresses say "uh", cough, stutter or do along those lines. B Roll helps to find these imperfections, and eliminates them from the A Roll, and from being heard on the final version of the documentary. B Roll was adopted with the first linear based editing before non linear editing became widely used. The additional B Roll is used in documentaries and fiction for different purposes. It's used in documentaries to additional commentary, questions and anything that can interwork in the main purpose of the film. It's occasionally used in fiction to show flashbacks.