Glossary
What is A-roll?
By the KeyMo team · Updated
A-roll is the main footage of a video, the shots that carry the story and the sound: a person speaking to camera, an interview, a conversation at a table. Everything laid over it to illustrate or cover cuts is B-roll. A podcast recording is almost entirely A-roll, so clipping one is mostly about choosing moments, not adding footage.
A-roll and B-roll side by side
The terms come from film and TV editing. The A-roll holds the thing the audience is there for. The B-roll supports it. If you removed all the B-roll, the video would still make sense. Remove the A-roll and it would not.
| A-roll | B-roll | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | The speaker, interview or main scene | Cutaways, inserts, screen captures, stock shots |
| Carries the audio? | Usually yes | Usually not; it plays under the A-roll audio |
| Can the video stand without it? | No | Yes, though it may feel flat |
| In a podcast | Hosts and guest on camera | A cutaway to a photo or chart someone mentions |
Why a video podcast is nearly all A-roll
A two-camera podcast is people talking, switched between wide shot and close shots. All of it is A-roll, even when the camera angle changes. That has a useful side effect for clipping. You do not need to match a cutaway to each sentence, so a clip can run straight from the original recording and still look finished.
It also sets the limit of what a clip can be. With only A-roll, the interest has to come from what is said and how it is said. That is why choosing the right 30 seconds matters more than any effect. The talking head format works for the same reason.
Example: one answer from a one-hour recording
Say a guest gives a 40-second answer at 41:10 in a one-hour episode. The raw material is a continuous A-roll shot of the guest, with the host appearing for two seconds at the start. To turn it into a clip you keep the guest's best sentence as the opening, trim the host's question, and reframe the wide shot to a vertical crop of the guest's face. No B-roll is needed, because the guest is the picture.
Cutaway footage becomes useful only when the speaker refers to something unseen, such as a chart or an old photo. If you do not have it, leave the A-roll alone rather than padding with stock footage that has nothing to do with the sentence.
Mistakes with A-roll
- Cutting away from the speaker too often. Each cutaway removes the face, which is what holds attention in a talking clip.
- Treating any wide shot as dead footage. If it carries the conversation, it is A-roll.
- Starting a clip on the host's question instead of the guest's answer.
Where KeyMo touches it
KeyMo takes the A-roll you give it, an MP4 or MOV upload or a YouTube link on paid plans, and cuts up to 15 vertical clips from it. Each clip has a score out of 10 and a one-line reason, and the picture is reframed on the speaker's face. It does not add cutaway footage; the clip is your original recording.