Photo : Thomas Hawk

The term “B-roll” refers to footage that adds meaning to a sequence or disguises the elimination of unwanted footage.

B-roll is not your primary footage, it supports and establishes visual evidence for what the speaker or narrator is referring to and sets the scene in which the story unfolds.

If the speaker is commenting on the wealth of fresh local produce, the B-roll would probably include shots of people shopping for fruits and veggies at farmers market.

B-roll is usually not scripted but is discovered. It is improvisational. You must develop an eye for it. Understand what story you want to tell and look for people and actions that will bring the viewer deeper into that story.

WATCH THIS VIDEO AND NOTICE THE GOOD USE OF B-ROLL FOOTAGE

B-roll can be captured after your primary footage has been shot and reviewed. For instance, in an interview you may hear something that compels you to capture more visual evidence to enrich the story. You would then shoot B-roll footage that supports the speaker and cutaway during the interview to your B-roll, placing the narrative audio over the footage.

B-roll is not only a storytelling device, it is also your band aid. Cutaway to B-roll footage to hide a zoom, cover verbal or visual tics and to add life to a interview that may otherwise not be visually compelling.

OTHER NOTES ON B-ROLL

In order to have B-roll, you must have A-roll footage, or footage that is your narrative thrust.

Shoot lots of B-roll. Especially if you are traveling and will likely not see your location again soon. You don’t have to use it and you never know what footage will come in handy to illustrate a point or provide further evidence for your narrative.

Shoot your B-roll from different angles and perspectives. Close ups, pans, ground level, over head…when capturing B-roll cover your bases.

It should be noted that many travel videos consist only of B-roll. These are usually montages and have no real narrative thread. Go beyond the basic travel music montage and develop a narrative thread while you chronicle your adventures. The result will be a much richer and rewarding travel video.

COMMUNITY CONNECTION

4 Easy Tips for Shooting Better Travel Videos

WITNESS Video Tips: Filming, Audio & Using Cellphones

Camp Muir, named for studly naturalist John Muir, sits on the Southeast flank of Mt. Rainier, some 4,500 ft from the summit. When the weather is clear the hike up the glacial fields to the popular climbers bivouac is relatively easy.

Rainier is the tallest in the Cascade mountain range and the lesser peaks seem to lap at the slopes of the dormant stratovolcano like little waves.

If you are day hiking to Camp Muir check the weather, pack warm clothes and make sure your camera has plenty of juice! The only thing better than a great hike on a perfectly clear day is shooting awesome video of that hike!

Take shots from different angles and perspectives to show the change in environment and to keep your audience interested. Most importantly, be safe and have fun!

If you enjoyed this video check out our hike up Mt. St. Helens!

Community Connection

Do you have a favorite day hike? Share your suggestions and favs in the comments below.

Current, which produces high quality independent journalism such as the Vanguard series, laid off 80 people today. Many of the cut backs hit the LA branch as Current pursues a new strategy of outsourcing more content. This means many creative professionals will need a new vehicle for their videos.

Enter MatadorTV

Ex Current staffers take heart, MatadorTV seeks your talent! Every lay off has a silver lining, now you have the time and energy to produce original content for MatadorTV. MatadorTV is a burgeoning community for travel lifestyle media. Our new site seeks to filter, present and produce the most compelling travel videos, the perfect place for to find solace among the tribulations of joblessness.

And even if you didn’t get the pink slip today, we still want your original content. So visit the site and contact us if you have an idea for a video or links to your completed work that you think would feel at home on MTV.

I CAUGHT this vid on YouTube and wanted to point out that some really solid VO can keep your audience interested and establish a narrative flow.

Aside from being fun to watch, this travel video is an excellent example of what can make a great travel video. Notice that from the get go the VO establishes who the characters in the story are and their relationship to one another.

Also notice that interviews play a key role in telling the story of the brothers adventure. You won’t always have the camera running when something important happens. What you can do is take some establishing footage after the fact and splice it together with an interview where you describe what is not being seen. The audience has a good imagination and will fill in the gaps.

While the footage is good, I believe what makes this video exceptional is the attention to narrative and story. A solid narrative voice can go a long way my friends. For more video tips read Tips for Travel Video: The Elements of a Story. And don’t forget to check out MatadorTV; presenting the very best travel videos.

Here are 4 of 157 videos Thomas has on his YouTube channel. Aside from shooting his own video, Thomas wants you to learn the techniques and gain the tools to fund your travels with video production.

How to make money with travel videos

Tutorial 1: Setting up your tripod and panning

Tutorial 2: How to record good audio

Here is an excellent example of Thom’s work:

Adelaide to Alice Springs Outback 4WD Safari

Visit Thom’s website, Filmingholidays.com or hit him up on his YouTube channel.

COMMUNITY CONNECTION

Get your fill of travel videos with 7 Most Inspiring Travel Video Channels on YouTube then once you are filled with inspiration, edit your own footage and upload to our YouTube group!

I had the pleasure of filming and editing videos for Black Rock TV, a new burning man “news and events” video series. I walked out of the desert with hours of footage and after a month I have some great videos to show for it. Please check out Black Rock TV.com and show some love!

I would love to hear what you think of the videos.

Check out more vids at www.blackrocktv.com

Community Connection

Matador has Burning Man covered! BNT’s Best Of The Week: Burning Man Roundup, 5 Things Cities Can Learn From Burning Man, One Week in The Desert: a Burning Man Documentary.

The thought of Dustin and I ascending moonlit scree slopes occupies my mind during the 4-hour drive from Seattle to Mt. St. Helens. I was born the year after Helens blew its top. Just missed it.

When I was a kid the eruption held a sense of monumental awe that folks just couldn’t shake. Every year around the anniversary Old Man Burtchett would point over the ridge of Douglas firs where the ash rose up and circled the earth. He heard it boom.

Who proposed to climb to the rim of the crater in the dead of night, I can’t remember. Dusty had made the relatively easy climb the summer before with no snow and no problems. But now it was February and we had snow shoes and poles if not our best interest in mind.

1:30am. We set off past the fleet of RV’s that hum gently with sleeping snowmobilers. After a few miles the trees break and the face of the volcano begins to pitch upward. Deep gullies slope away and great valleys open up to our headlamps.

Ridges of rock in sporadic slashes. The wind starts to shove. Left then right then up from behind into all the little chinks in my clothing. We hug the ridge now because 5 feet on either side is a sheer drop.

Now the angle of our ascent blocks all view of what lies ahead. It’s all just up. It’s all just dark. In the Big Drop Off little trees grow at absurd drunken angles. My light doesn’t reach the bottom. I have my concerns. I keep thinking that we are going to step right off the edge of the world and not know it. It is all up up up until bang, you’re there, but you don’t see it coming. At least that is what I heard.

I insist we hunker behind a slab of rock and make coco. There is a shy smear of gray to the east, just behind Mt. Adams and I want to sip coco as the sun comes up.

The summit is a tempest. The mountain levels off and then you realize you are standing on a 20 foot cornice that hangs off the edge of the crater. The wind sprays ice. I am so shaken by the wind speeds, the cold and the fact that I am literally hovering about a smoldering lava dome that my footage is scant at best.

Dustin and I crawl to the edge of the volcano like little boys and peer over.

Community Connection

Ever climbed a mountain before? Wanna try… 6 American Mountains to Climb for Big Adventure & 11 Most Dangerous Mountains in the World for Climbers

Thomas is Irish. Tim is American. They’re leaving their lives in New York City to travel the globe and make a travel show about how the rest of the urban world lives.
No guidebooks. No tourist traps. No all-inclusive resorts.

Instead, they’ve made contact with one local, a complete stranger, who wants to show them what life is really like in their city. It could be amazing. It could be a disaster. But that’s the only way they want to travel.

[P.S.] This Is My City sounds like the kind of project you might dream up if you wanted to spend a year having a great deal of fun, travel the world and perhaps get paid along the way. But how did the idea come about?

This idea was in fact part of a carefully planned scheme to escape the day job, have a great deal of fun, travel the world and also create something in the process. We had both traveled quite a bit and we realized that we always found ourselves in the most interesting and memorable situations when we made an effort to engage with locals and get to know them. We felt that this was a way of traveling that we wanted to do more of and also something we wanted to promote. And that’s how the show was born.

Is the series fueled by a dislike / disillusionment of guidebooks?

You know guidebooks definitely have their uses. They can be really informative and genuinely helpful at times. We’ll be carrying Lonely Planet Japan around with us and we’re not ashamed of that. But guidebooks also have their limitations and we are a little disillusioned with most of the travel shows out there. Locals aren’t usually the ones writing guidebooks or hosting travel shows and we see this as a mistake. So our show puts the local first.

What made you include the “we can’t say no” rule? And aren’t you secretly worried that some Jackass enthusiast might make you snort wasabi or take your clothes off in a snowstorm?

Our ‘don’t say no’ rule was born out of a moment in Reykjavik when for no good reason we were attempting to turn down the gay shaman seven-hour sweating ritual that our host Vidar was proposing to us. He was insistent though and seven hours later, physically and spiritually reborn, we made a pact to never say ‘no’ on this show again. Exposing yourself to local customs and really getting into the way of life might make you uncomfortable. But being a little uncomfortable is not a bad thing. Our rule isn’t about being stupid or reckless, it’s about being always open. If snorting wasabi naked in a snowstorm is something that the locals actually do, we’re up for it.

How come you did Reykjavik first – and how did you find a star like Vidar?

Reykjavik was somewhere we both had always wanted to go and it had the advantage of being close to New York but also extremely foreign. Then of course it also has the culture, style, music and ice going for it. We knew one or two people in Iceland and thankfully everyone in Iceland knows everyone else in Iceland. And we got very lucky with Vidar. He was a legend for the part.

Watch the pilot episode for This Is My City. I highly recommend it!

What’s your M.O. when working on your shows. Is there a casting process? What kind of character are you looking for, in a nutshell – and how do you know when you’ve found them?

To find our local hosts, we cast a really wide net and hope for the best. We contact friends, friends of friends as well as complete strangers. We approach bands, artists, writers and talk to everyone we meet about where we’re going and who they know. It’s like six degrees of separation applied to place. Once we have a potential host, we get a rough itinerary and start a conversation with them. The motive to be a host needs to come from a sincere love of the city in question and a desire to share that with the world. Strange is also good. When our Belgrade hopeful said he would be bringing us to a ZZ Top gig followed by a massive party on a raft, we knew we had our man.

Which countries have you got lined up next, and why have you chosen these places specifically?

We’re taking off on a trip that will hit twelve cities in all five continents. Our first production leg will bring us to eight cites over three months visiting places like Berlin, Beirut, Osaka and Melbourne. The second leg will bring us to Bogota, Mexico City and Detroit amongst others. The show won’t just profile capitals and ‘great’ cities, which has been done too many times before. We want to visit second cities as well as the odd huge chaotic metropolis – contrast is key for an entertaining season. Our philosophy is that you can have a spectacular time anywhere; be it Michigan or Brazil. In fact we think that less obvious destinations will entice more in the way of magic.

What have been the major obstacles so far?

Well we’re still looking for an Osaka host and apparently security detail is going to be required in Serbia but the major obstacles begin when we hit the road. We’re expecting travel disasters and language barriers and culture shock and boredom and God knows what else because this show is about traveling for real. It’s not pretense and it’s not setup. And we won’t be trying to hide the bad times or the obstacles. Everything that happens on this trip will make it into the show.

What are the most ridiculous or memorable situations you’ve encountered so far?

There are always things that you can’t capture quite as well as you’d like and one thing about Reykjavik that probably doesn’t come across in the pilot is the physicality of the people there. In bars and clubs, people actually walk through you. They barge, they push, they spill drinks, they take your drinks and they literally move you out of the way if they feel like it. Without asking. As Vidar explained to us, it’s like one big family of hunters there. And that was very different and very cool.

How much spontaneity or “on-the-flyness” is involved?

This show is 100% spontaneous. Seriously. The only prep is choosing our host and once we have them we’re in their hands. We arrive, we make a phone call and then we assume our enthusiastic guinea pig positions. Also, we have very small and unobtrusive HD cameras, no lights and no crew except for one local producer. So we really are on-the-fly and spontaneous because we’re trying to make a real show here and not a reality show.

How long does it take to complete a show, from beginning to end?

It takes about four weeks to complete a show from beginning to end. Rather than edit on the road, we’re traveling and shooting in big chunks and then doing post when we return. We’re a two-man production team: Thomas produces; Tim edits; we both shoot; we’re both in it. It’s really stripped down, which is something you can do these days because of the technology available. We’ve had to master the art of filming while intoxicated but even that’s possible with the correct training.

In that sense, this is kind of a guerilla show. Do you think that’s the way forward for video / film entertainment shows (travel, music etc)?

This is a guerilla show yes but the production model is determined by the content we’re looking for. The reason we’re guerilla is because we want to be intimate and personal and we aspire to being real in a way that makes you feel like you’re actually there with us, experiencing the city. The film industry and its accompanying apparatus are there because you really do need them to make a film. Documentary approaches on the other hand are always being widened by advancements in technology.

How long do you plan to be on the road for?

We’re shooting a 12-episode season and taking a week in each place. We’ll be doing it in two legs with minimal breaks. It’s essentially back-to-back shows, which is going to be interesting. It’s definitely going to take years off our lives.

How are you funding the trip?

We have some independent backing for the first season of the show but our approach is extremely low budget until a giant network swoops in and drowns us in cash. We don’t have a syndication deal yet (hello Mr. and Mrs. network executive readers) but we’d like this show to reach a global audience and we think that TV is the best medium for it. For now, you can follow our trip on www.thisismycity.tv and stay tuned for news and developments.

You both have fairly high profile backgrounds in video & film. Would you say this is helpful or indispensable?

We think it’s amazing that you can pick up a cheap camera and shoot broadcast-quality video. Kids are doing it all the time now and it’s definitely the way forward for a whole new generation of DIY content. That said, our experience and our backgrounds have been an asset when it comes to bringing footage, music, narrative and nonsense together to make a relatively polished final product.

Become a host on This Is My City

This Is My City is still looking for hosts in Beirut, Osaka, and Melbourne. For the second leg of their journey Thomas and Tim are going to be looking for hosts in Sao Paulo, Bogota, Mexico City, Memphis and Detroit. Interested? Contact This Is My City: thomas@thisismycity.tv

Photo: mr. nightshade

Tonight the tents and RVs and camps are empty.

Tonight ice melts in unattended coolers. Filthy lawn chairs hold silent counsel over vacant plots of dust.

Tonight 43,000 burners gather in ever widening, concentric circles. The Man stands with neon and lumber arms stretched toward the sky.

This is what I have been waiting for.

Flicking a cigarette into the desert wind, a veteran burner tells me he could almost skip it. He says it has become a passe spectacle, that the Burning of The Man isn’t the point.

But I wouldn’t miss it.

And from the bursts of fire, a quarter mile distant, comes glimpses of the tens of thousands who wouldn’t miss it either.

Even the jaded old burners, a little bored, a little self important, wait restlessly for the fire.

Photo: william.neuheisel

We stoke the collective need for The Man to Burn with our upturned eyes and raised hands and dancing feet.

Firefighters in haz-mat suits and shiny beetle shell helmets hold a wide perimeter around the Man.

Are the firefighters apart of this?

Are they too feeding the fire, or merely waiting to clock off?

As the call comes through on the walkie talkie does their breath catch? Even a little?

Boooooom!

Ahhhhhhh…*

Red gold green works of fire explode above the Man. Downwind smoldering debris falls.

We scream.

For the joy, the slaked anticipation, for the thing that was built to burn, we scream and scream.

The fireworks conclude in an inferno, a torrent of flame curling in on itself in a roiling plume, breathing heat and light on the upturned (screaming) faces.

For a moment everything is fire.

The Man burns to the ground and we rush in, ignoring the commands of the firefighters to stay back. It’s not time! they shout. They only shout once then look on helplessly, shrugging at each other.

Counterclockwise we circle the fire.The air is warped with heat.

A perfect, naked pixie twirls her lithe frame before the curtain of fire.

Community Connection

Have you had an experience at Burning Man you would like to share? Please hit us up in the comments below.

Get your Burning Man fix all year right here on Matador: The First-Timer’s Guide to Participating at Burning Man, BNT’s Best Of The Week: Burning Man Roundup,13 of the Coolest Art Installations in the History of Burning Man.

Travel Diary

Being alone in New York pushed Keng-Ming Liu into a dark corner and he released his anxiety by communicating with my friends throughout world. He condensed his thoughts and feelings into travel diaries…

Travel

An amusing way to spend 25 seconds…how many times do you see George Bush?

Amsterdam

An animated account of a trip to Amsterdam including an encounter with fellow backpackers, the red light district and witnessing one of the benefits of visiting the Netherlands – legalized pot! Produced by Hilary Leben for Lonelyplanet.tv.

Travel

‘Travel’ is a short animation made using an overhead projector based on my personal thoughts and experiences of travelling. It is a stop-frame pieced together in After Effects. This animation is part of a larger project; visit kellyangood.co.uk to see it as a whole.

A Invitation to Travel.

Animation film by David Gautier based on the famous poem by Charles Baudelaire.

Community Connection

Are you a movie buff? Then you should most definitely check out The 20 Most Memorable Travel Films (That Aren’t Really About Travel)& 8 Bollywood Movies to Watch.

Strange recorded tape when I was in Paris for you.
By marin & sybila

Travels
By Wing Yin Yau

Cairo Street
By hatzputra

It Goes Without Saying
By Una Lorenzen

Zaragozoom!!
By Javier Fernández Fañanás

Community Connection

I see you are a strange one too…in that case you want to check out MatadorPulse Archives of Weird Stuff.

I was clued into Christoph’s YouTube channel from a comment left on my recent post
5 Amazing Time Lapse Travel Videos by Marissa ( Thanks M! )

Christoph has 117 videos on his YouTube channel, most of them quick random encounters on his long walk in China.

It is rare that a video is over a minute, most are but 15-20 seconds, non sequiturs ranging from squirming caterpillars to rain forest water falls. Each snippet is an unadorned moment, captured and presented with a sort of humble grace.

Follow Marissa’s example and hit me up with links to your favorite travel videos in the comments! Follow Christoph’s lead and present your travel footage to the world through Matador’s YouTube group.

There is something magical about time lapse. Time lapse captures time and motion, presenting an environment in flux from a perspective that is not possible otherwise. Enjoy these exceptional time lapse videos I found on Vimeo.

London Timelapse by Xtrax London

Eclectic 3.0: The Roads Less Traveled by Ross Ching

Travel and Music Time lapse by Dave Schwep

Cook Inlet -Turnagain Arm – Portage Valley Timelapse

Sur le fleuve Niger by strictly_homemade

Photo: udt_greenberet1123

You have captured amazing footage of your trip, now what do you do with it?

Most professional editors use programs that cost an arm and a leg and require hours upon hours of training.

In the case of the average traveler, simpler is better and free is best.

iMovie

iMovie has a very intuitive interface and many cool features that allow for transitions and titles. iMovie also works easily with iPhoto and Garage Band allowing you to add your favorite pictures and compose your own soundtrack.

iMovie is only compatible with your Mac and is free with a new computer purchase.

User Reviews
“iMovie 09 is genuinely useful and fun.”

“…non-techie older people need only iMovie, but the majority of apple users have the skills necessary to use Final Cut Express.”

Windows Movie Maker

Movie Maker comes installed on newer computers running Windows. Like iMovie, Movie Maker has drag and drop editing features for the casual editor. Common complaints include frequent freezing and crashing.

User Reviews
“Freezes constantly. No exaggeration….probably once every 3 minutes. Makes it impossible to get anything done.”

“Cheap, simple, very irritating”

DOWNLOAD MOVIE MAKER

Wax

Photo: blakespot

Wax touts itself as high performance video compositing and special effects software.

Wax can create 2D & 3D special effects and works in two modes – as a standalone application or as a “plug-in” to Sony Vegas, Pure Motion Edit Studio and Adobe Premiere.

Reviews seem to agree that the interface takes some time to learn, but for special effects this is one of the best, free options.

There are also warnings of piggybacking viruses.

User Reviews
“There are so many options and it comes with over 50 effects! I love it and it is extremely hard to find other free plug-ins for my software…”

“Excellent video editing, with severe rendering issues.”

“Not easy for beginners (like me), but after you read the Help section and practice a lot, you’ll get the hang of it… This suckers just kickin’ my ass right now though.”

DOWNLOAD WAX

ZS4 Video Editor

The new incarnation of Zwei-Stein Video Editor claims to be advanced video editing and compositing software with over 150 built-in video effects.
ZS4 runs on Windows, Linux and OSX and is free to download.

User reviews are pretty scathing and many people seem to have problems running the program… might want to do more research before you download this bad boy.

User Reviews
“User interface designed by Stevie Wonder.”

“Huge amount of effects/filters, infinite level of track sub-mixers, great chroma keying and cool distort effects.”

“Slow and difficult to use.”

DOWNLOAD ZS4

Community Connection

Get your editing juices gushing with the 7 Most Inspiring Travel Video Channels on YouTube

Photo:flattop431

If you are anything like me, you have more than a few tales of travel terror.

Like the time I was cruising down the beach front ribbon of road in Mui Ne, Vietnam.

My mother Cory sits between my wife Bridget and I on the rented scooter as we are try to decide which bar we want to munch calamari in.

Then it hits me.

Well, actually it hits Bridget.
A twenty person mini bus slams into the back of us like a battering ram.
The three of us throw out legs out to steady the wobbling scooter that threatens to go down, putting us under the wheels of the bus.

Too often I have thought to myself in some near brush with travel cataclysm~

“Just what the hell am I doing out here!”

I had a great time chopping up this footage of Bridget and I in Long Hai, Vietnam when the entire town gets word a tsunami is heading straight for them!

How to Run from a Tsunami! from confluence creative media on Vimeo.

One minute we are blogging, the next we are running for our lives!

As soon as Bridget and I made the mile long sprint back to our guest house I set up the tripod. I knew whether a tsunami leveled the town or not I might get some cool footage.

Shooting video while terrified is a good thing to do. Assuming you survive the encounter (good luck!) you will be happy you had the presence of mind to capture the madness.

Scared? Unsure? Panicked?! First things first…grab your camera!

Community Connection

It can be a scary world out there, and having a few phobias doesn’t help either! Check out The 5 Deadliest Travel Fears,5 Simple Ways To Conquer Your Fear Of Flying & The World’s Most Dangerous Hike at your own risk!