How I Think About B-Roll Before I Even Book the Trip
B-roll used to be something I thought about during a shoot, gathered opportunistically whenever there was a spare moment between the primary coverage I'd actually planned for. That approach consistently produced thinner, less useful supplementary footage than clients actually needed. Now I think about b-roll before a trip is even booked, and the difference in the final deliverable has been significant.
Treating b-roll as an afterthought is one of the more common gaps I see in how photographers and videographers plan adventure projects. If you want the fuller system I use for planning comprehensive shot lists from the very start, it's part of a bigger framework in The Adventure Travel Photographer's Playbook.
Why B-Roll Deserves Planning, Not Just Opportunism
B-roll often gets treated as a lesser category of coverage, whatever gets picked up incidentally while focused on the primary hero content. That framing undersells how much value well-planned supporting footage actually delivers to a finished project, particularly for video-heavy deliverables where b-roll often makes up the majority of total runtime.
Opportunistic b-roll tends to be thin and repetitive precisely because it's gathered without deliberate variety in mind, similar wide shots of similar activities, without the range of scale, angle, and subject matter that actually makes supporting footage useful across a variety of eventual edit needs.
Planned b-roll, by contrast, can be deliberately built around the actual range of footage types an edit is likely to need, establishing shots, detail shots, transitional moments, environmental texture, gathered with genuine intention rather than picked up only when nothing else demanded attention in the moment.
This shift from opportunistic to planned b-roll has meaningfully improved how usable my supporting footage actually is once a client moves into their own editing process, since it was gathered with real understanding of what a finished edit typically needs, not just whatever happened to be convenient to capture.
How I Actually Plan B-Roll Before a Trip
Before booking a trip, I try to build a rough mental or written inventory of the kinds of supporting footage a project will likely need, based on the specific deliverables a client has described and my own experience with what similar projects have required in the past.
I think through the different footage categories deliberately, wide establishing shots of key locations, closer detail shots of gear, texture, and environment, transitional footage of travel and movement between locations, human moments that add warmth and context beyond the primary action being documented.
I also research the specific locations on the itinerary in enough detail to identify likely b-roll opportunities before arriving, a particular vista known for strong establishing shots, a specific texture or detail unique to that environment, so I'm not starting the search for these opportunities cold once I've actually arrived with limited time available.
This upfront planning doesn't mean rigidly scripting every b-roll shot in advance, spontaneity and opportunism still matter in the field. But having a clear sense of the categories and general opportunities I'm looking for going in makes that in-field opportunism far more productive and comprehensive than starting with no plan at all.
How B-Roll Planning Changes What I Actually Pack and Schedule
Once I understand the b-roll needs of a project, that understanding directly shapes equipment decisions, whether a secondary camera setup dedicated to supporting footage makes sense, whether specific lenses suited to detail or environmental shots need to be prioritized in an already weight-constrained kit.
Scheduling also shifts once b-roll is planned rather than purely opportunistic. I build specific time into a shoot day's schedule for gathering supporting footage deliberately, rather than assuming it will simply happen in the margins of time dedicated to primary coverage, which in practice often means it doesn't happen at a sufficient volume or variety.
I also think about sequencing b-roll capture relative to primary coverage, sometimes gathering establishing and environmental footage earlier in a day before the primary subject and activity coverage begins, since lighting and energy levels for that kind of supporting footage are often more flexible than the specific conditions a hero shot might require.
This deliberate scheduling has meant that b-roll capture no longer competes directly, in an unplanned way, with primary coverage for the same limited shooting time, since both categories now have their own protected space within an overall shoot day's plan.
What Kinds of B-Roll Consistently Prove Most Valuable
Environmental and location-establishing footage consistently proves valuable across nearly every kind of project, since it gives an eventual edit the context and sense of place that pure action or subject-focused footage alone doesn't provide, regardless of how strong that primary coverage is on its own.
Process and preparation footage, gear being organized, a route being studied, the quieter moments before or after primary action, tends to be underappreciated in the moment but often proves surprisingly valuable in a finished edit, adding texture and authenticity that purely action-focused coverage can lack.
Transitional footage, travel between locations, changing light throughout a day, tends to be genuinely useful for pacing a finished edit, giving an editor material to bridge between more dynamic primary sequences without the pacing feeling abrupt or disjointed.
Human, candid moments, genuine reactions, interactions, small unscripted details, consistently prove to be some of the most valuable supporting footage a project can include, since they add warmth and authenticity that more deliberately composed primary coverage sometimes lacks on its own.
How Much B-Roll Is Actually Enough
There's a real balance to strike between gathering sufficient supporting footage and over-investing time in b-roll at the expense of primary coverage that a project genuinely depends on more heavily. I try to calibrate b-roll volume against the actual scope and format of a project's final deliverables rather than gathering an arbitrary, unconsidered amount.
Video-heavy projects with longer final runtimes generally need proportionally more b-roll than photo-primary projects, since video editing typically requires significantly more raw supporting footage than a still photography deliverable would to fill out a comparable amount of finished content.
I also try to gather enough variety within each b-roll category, rather than a large volume of very similar shots, since variety within a category often proves more useful to an eventual edit than sheer volume of nearly identical coverage that doesn't actually expand the editor's real options.
Over enough projects, I've developed a reasonably reliable sense of what "enough" b-roll actually looks like for a given project type and scale, though I still err on the side of gathering somewhat more than feels strictly necessary, since supporting footage is considerably easier to have and not use than to wish for after a shoot has already wrapped.
How This Planning Has Changed Client Satisfaction With Final Deliverables
Clients who receive genuinely comprehensive, well-planned b-roll alongside primary coverage consistently report a smoother, more satisfying post-production experience on their end, since their own editors have significantly more usable material to work with than a thinner, opportunistically gathered set would have provided.
I've also noticed that well-planned b-roll tends to extend a project's usable lifespan for a client, since supporting footage often gets repurposed across multiple pieces of content over time, well beyond the primary deliverable it was originally gathered to support, in ways that thin, incidental b-roll simply can't sustain.
This has become part of how I explain the value of my process to prospective clients, framing comprehensive b-roll planning not as an extra service but as a core part of what makes a finished project genuinely more valuable and flexible for their broader content needs beyond the immediate deliverable.
Clients who've experienced both a thinner, opportunistic approach from other photographers and my more deliberately planned approach have consistently told me the difference is noticeable, not in any single dramatic shot, but in the overall depth and flexibility of the final footage library they end up with.
What I'd Tell a Photographer Who Treats B-Roll as an Afterthought
My honest advice to any photographer still treating b-roll as something to pick up opportunistically is to start building a genuine b-roll plan before every trip, alongside the primary shot list, rather than treating it as a lesser category that doesn't deserve the same deliberate planning attention.
I'd encourage thinking through the specific categories of supporting footage a project's deliverables will actually need, and researching location-specific opportunities for each category before departure, rather than trusting that sufficient variety will simply emerge naturally during the shoot itself.
I'd also encourage building dedicated time into shoot day schedules for gathering this footage deliberately, rather than assuming it will happen adequately in the unplanned margins of time between primary coverage, since in practice that assumption consistently produces thinner results than genuine planning does.
Comprehensive, deliberately planned b-roll has become one of the more quietly valuable parts of how I deliver projects, and it's a discipline that pays off consistently across nearly every kind of adventure and travel photography and videography work.
How I Organize and Deliver B-Roll So Clients Actually Use It
Comprehensive b-roll footage only delivers real value if a client can actually find and use it effectively once it's delivered, and I've learned that organization and labeling matter almost as much as the footage itself in determining whether supporting material actually gets put to good use.
I organize delivered footage into clearly labeled categories that mirror how an editor would actually think about assembling a piece, establishing shots, detail shots, transitional footage, human moments, rather than a single undifferentiated folder that requires a client's own team to sort through everything from scratch to find what they need.
I also include a brief written overview alongside larger deliveries, summarizing what categories of supporting footage are included and suggesting a few ways it might be used, since that small addition has noticeably increased how much of the delivered b-roll clients actually end up incorporating into their finished content.
This attention to organization and presentation, not just the raw volume and variety of footage itself, has become part of what I consider genuine b-roll planning, since even the most comprehensively gathered supporting footage delivers diminished value if it's presented in a way that makes it hard for a client to actually use effectively.
What Happens When B-Roll Planning Gets Skipped Under Time Pressure
Even with deliberate planning as the standard approach, genuinely time-constrained shoots occasionally force a return to more opportunistic b-roll gathering, and I've learned to recognize and manage this tradeoff honestly rather than pretending comprehensive planning is always achievable regardless of actual time available.
On the rare shoots where time genuinely doesn't allow for the full planned b-roll approach, I prioritize the categories I know from experience tend to matter most for a given deliverable type, rather than trying to gather a thin, unfocused sample across every category and ending up with insufficient depth in any of them.
I also communicate proactively with clients when I know a specific shoot's time constraints will limit b-roll depth relative to what a fully planned approach would normally produce, setting realistic expectations early rather than letting a client discover the gap only once they're in their own editing process.
These time-constrained situations have reinforced, by contrast, just how much value the fully planned approach actually adds when time does allow for it, since the difference in resulting footage depth and usability between a rushed and a properly planned b-roll effort is consistently significant and easy to see once you know what to compare it against.
These constrained experiences have also made me a more efficient planner overall, since knowing how to prioritize under genuine time pressure has sharpened my sense of which b-roll categories actually matter most for a given deliverable, a skill that's proven useful even on fully planned shoots where that same prioritization instinct helps allocate limited shooting time more effectively.
I think there's a broader lesson here about how constraint, even the unwelcome kind imposed by circumstance rather than choice, tends to sharpen judgment in ways that unlimited time and resources rarely do on their own. The discipline forced by a genuinely time-constrained shoot has, more than once, ended up improving how I plan even fully unconstrained projects afterward.
I've started deliberately imposing artificial time constraints on some fully unconstrained b-roll planning sessions specifically to capture some of that same sharpened prioritization instinct, forcing myself to identify the genuinely essential categories quickly rather than letting an abundance of available time lead to a less focused, less deliberate planning process than a real constraint would have produced naturally.
This deliberate practice of imposing artificial constraints, even when genuine ones aren't present, has become a small but genuinely useful part of how I approach planning more broadly, a reminder that unlimited time and resources don't automatically produce better decisions than a well-chosen, deliberately imposed limitation would.
I'd recommend this same practice to any photographer who feels their planning process has become sluggish or unfocused, since imposing a modest, artificial deadline on a specific planning task often reveals how much genuine clarity was available all along, simply obscured by the absence of any real pressure to prioritize decisively.
I'd add that this lesson applies just as well beyond b-roll specifically, to nearly any part of a photography business where unlimited time quietly becomes an excuse for indecision rather than the genuine asset it might initially appear to be on the surface, from client proposal writing to portfolio curation to the countless smaller planning decisions that fill an average working week without much conscious thought behind them, decisions that would likely benefit from the same deliberate, focused pressure a genuine constraint reliably provides, rather than the diffuse, unfocused effort that unlimited time so often quietly and invisibly encourages instead, without anyone involved even fully realizing it's genuinely, quietly happening in that exact moment of decision, invisible until much later on down the road, when it's already genuinely and truly far too late to fully reverse that entire course at all.
I'd suggest starting with a genuinely modest constraint, an hour instead of a full afternoon, for a single upcoming project's b-roll plan, and paying close attention to how quickly genuine priorities surface once the luxury of unlimited time is deliberately taken off the table entirely for that specific planning session.
Building a shot list that treats b-roll planning with the same seriousness as primary coverage is part of the bigger production framework I cover in The Adventure Travel Photographer's Playbook.
Reflection Questions
- Do you plan b-roll deliberately before a trip, or gather it opportunistically during the shoot?
- What categories of supporting footage does your typical project's deliverables actually need?
- Do you build dedicated shoot day time specifically for gathering supporting footage?
- How has the depth of your b-roll affected client satisfaction with final deliverables?
Dalton Johnson is a professional adventure and editorial photographer with over a decade of experience shooting on all seven continents. His client work includes Patagonia, GoPro, Arc'teryx, Four Seasons, Nike, Rivian, Big Agnes, Ford Bronco, and 160+ other brands. He runs Dalton Johnson Media as a full-service studio, from pre-production through post and distribution.