What is b-roll footage?

B-roll is any footage that supports and enriches the primary content rather than carrying the narrative on its own. The term comes from film production, where the A-roll was the main footage — often a person talking — and the B-roll was the extra material cut over it. In a modern video, A-roll might be a presenter speaking to camera, while B-roll could be product close-ups, screen recordings, establishing shots, or illustrative clips. Layered over the A-roll, B-roll shows what is being described and gives the eyes something to follow beyond a single static shot.

Beyond illustration, b-roll serves practical editing purposes. Cutting to b-roll lets you hide jump cuts, trim mistakes, or condense a long take without an obvious visual break, since the audience is looking at the secondary footage while the main audio continues underneath. It also controls pacing: well-placed cutaways add energy and prevent the fatigue of staring at one unchanging frame. Good b-roll is intentional and relevant — it reinforces the message being spoken rather than distracting from it — which is why creators often collect more b-roll than they think they'll need.

Screen recordings are one of the most useful kinds of b-roll for software, product, and tutorial content: a clean clip of an app in action illustrates a point far better than words alone. Limelight produces polished screen-recording b-roll — with auto-zoom, cursor smoothing, and on-screen keystrokes baked in — that you can cut over a talking-head A-roll in your editor. Because Limelight footage already looks directed, it drops into an edit as high-quality b-roll with little extra cleanup.