My shoe suddenly comes loose in the hallway.
I leave it – turning back would only slow me down. I swerve
right to avoid an oncoming tape cart but trip over my now-exposed
loose sock and fall face-first into an opening door. I gather myself
and amidst calls of, “Are you okay?” and “Oh my
Lord!”, and scramble to pick up the dropped tapes. I hobble
like the wind up a metal staircase, round two corners and burst
into the “tape pit” (a.k.a control room).
Twenty seconds later those tapes played live on
air. I had done my job; I had delivered the b-roll on time, and
my work that day was done. I pulled up my sock and picked up my
rogue shoe as I made my way back to my edit suite. This was just
one episode in one day among many similar days, when I regretted
not wearing running shoes. Hush Puppies do not breathe well.
For two months in the summer of 2006 I worked
as a tape producer for the now-defunct CBC News: Tonight,
which ran on Newsworld as a summer replacement for The Hour.
I will always have affection for my time at Tonight.
It was a small show with a small staff and a small budget. It was
there that I was introduced to the art of producing b-roll, which
I soon learned was more of a physical test of endurance than a skill-craft.
Most of my days were spent trolling the hallways between the tape
library, the satellite feed room, and my edit suite in search of
footage that could be cobbled together as b-roll.
From the time the show's lineup is more or less
finalized and b-roll requests are made to tape producers, to the
time when the b-roll finally goes to air, it is a mad dash to find
tapes, pick shots, cut together b-roll, output the b-roll to a tape,
fill out information in a computer database and deliver the tape
to the control room. Each of these steps must be followed for every
piece of b-roll that’s produced, whether it is fifteen seconds
of visuals for a quick voice-over or multiple tapes worth of b-roll
for a long interview that covers many topics.
JAYSON GO is in the final year of his Masters of Journalism
degree at the University of British Columbia. Originally from Cebu
City, the Philippines, Go has worked for CBC as an associate producer
and has also interned as a researcher for Global National with Kevin
Newman. In 2006 he was one of eight student journalists chosen from
across Canada for the Joan Donaldson Newsworld Scholarship. He holds
a BA in Anthropology and Political Science from UBC. His academic
papers have been published in the UBC Journal of Political Studies
and the Southern Maine Review.
While many may dismiss
the production of b-roll as straightforward busywork, there’s
more to it. Production of b-roll and the choices tape producers
are forced to make can get dicey when time runs out.
(Full disclosure: my work with CBC Newsworld inspired
the argument that I present. However, it should in no way reflect
on any of CBC Newsworld’s programs or employees.)
Defining B-Roll
For the uninitiated, b-roll, or cover footage,
refers to secondary images that appear onscreen during interviews,
voice-over segments, “coming-up” bumpers, and the like.
When Larry King interviews Bill Clinton, and footage appears of
Clinton playing the saxophone on Asenio Hall in 1992, that is b-roll.
When Peter Mansbridge says that “Stephen Harper met with George
Bush at the Whitehouse today,” and footage of the event is
played over the voice track, that is b-roll. When a news anchor
says, “After the break we’ll take a look at Toronto’s
new smoking ban,” while smokers appear on your screen –
you got it, b-roll.
B-roll is all about making what's being presented
visually interesting.
I like to think that there are two types of b-roll
that news networks use for live television: let’s call one
“objective b-roll” and the other “subjective b-roll.”
The difference between the two boils down to whether the tape producer
has a choice over the footage sought.
Objective b-roll is time-sensitive, specific footage.
When the story is, “Hugo Chavez visits an ailing Fidel Castro,”
the b-roll shows the specific event. No other encounter between
the two can be shown. Objective b-roll is often quite critical in
telling the story. It isn’t enough to simply say that, “John
Mark Carr arrived in Boulder, Colorado today.” News shows
have to show him walking down the jetway, escorted by guards and
surrounded by photographers.
Objective b-roll is harder to procure. Usually
sent in through satellite feeds, it can often only be found on one
tape and is highly sought after within a network. This is especially
the case at a place like CBC Newsworld, where the network is divided
up into separate and distinct “fiefdoms.” When footage
for a leading story comes in, it’s first-come-first-served.
Subjective b-roll is different. It isn’t
tied to any specific footage, so the tape producer has a choice
in what to edit together as b-roll. For example, a story about the
oppression of women in Iran could have footage of Iranian women
hanging laundry, or being arrested for having her face exposed,
or even young girls covered from head-to-toe in black. With this
type of b-roll, the tape producer must be subjective and, to an
extent, make ethical judgments about how particular images fit within
a story.
Objective b-roll isn’t always new footage.
In August when former hockey agent David Frost was charged with
sexual exploitation, almost every CBC News show scrambled for the
one tape with footage of Frost: a mere 15-second clip and a mug
shot. But it was a necessary accompaniment to the story.
That August day I ran around the CBC building
chasing the tape until I finally tracked it down. As soon as I had
it, calls started coming in from people asking whether they could
have it once I was done.
This happened a lot when I worked at Newsworld,
due in large measure to the fact that three major programs –
CBC News: Tonight, CBC News: The National, and
CBC News Morning, which produced their b-roll at night
– all needed b-roll at about the same time. I suspect that
any network that has a stable of news programs faces similar problems.
Poorly produced or poorly chosen b-roll is almost
always an indication that the tape producer was rushed.
The Problem with B-Roll
Two types of malfeasance can occur as a result
of rushing b-roll, the first done unwittingly due to oversight,
and the second done deliberately and ethically irresponsibly.
An example of oversight is misinterpreting a b-roll
request or interview question. When discussing “the comeback
of nuclear industry” you might run b-roll of Kim Jong Il or
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, when in fact you should have found stock footage
of nuclear power plants. These accidental mistakes are the most
noticeable but also the most forgivable.
Because objective b-roll is often tied to lead
stories, (1) footage is highly sought after within a network, and
(2) it must be finished on time at the risk of ruining, postponing,
or worst, dropping, a top story.
It is precisely because subjective b-roll is given
a lower priority that it is subject to error. With objective b-roll
there’s an iron-clad understanding of what’s needed,
so rushing it isn’t much of a concern. Subjective b-roll,
on the other hand, requires judgments and reasoning, so logically
it shouldn’t be done last or at the last-minute. Rushing subjective
b-roll can create problems due to human discretion.
In these situations, viewers may be seeing inaccurate
b-roll. Locations, for example, are not often distinguishable. Streets
in one city look like other street in other cities. Mountains in
one country look like mountains in other countries. When time runs
out and there needs to be b-roll for “Summer fun on the West
Coast,” a producer might be tempted to use footage of a beach
in Toronto, if the tape is handy and there’s little chance
he’ll be found out. If he decides to do this, when that tape
is archived, it will forever bear the tag “Vancouver beach,”
and anyone who uses it to produce b-roll in the future will have
no reason to assume it isn’t.
The process of producing b-roll is not amenable
to deep, contemplative thought or sober, deliberative reasoning.
There are no codes of conduct or principled guidelines to follow,
because thinking on your feet means thinking with your gut. The
problem with b-roll, as it relates to live news programming, is
that it can so easily lead to breaches of ethical conduct and ethical
principles of truth-telling, accurate representation and honesty.
In an environment where b-roll is thought
to be absolutely essential to a live news broadcast, tape producers
must deliver (often literally; a la Joan Cusack in Broadcast
News) their orders on time every time. Faced with this pressure,
tape producers are often forced to make snap ethical decisions that
hedge the line between doing the job “right” and getting
the job done. “Getting the job done” is often intimately
tied to how one is perceived as a worker or even whether one stays
as worker. In the end, it’s much more impressive to look like
a miracle worker.
