Adding Cutaways or B-Roll Material

Often when editing material, you may want to use only a portion of what someone is saying, then jump ahead to something else that person is saying. This jump from one part of a clip to a different part of the same material is referred to as a jump cut. Jump cuts are jarring to the viewer, going from one talking head shot to another. These cuts are generally covered up by editing a new shot of something else over the actual edit point. These replacement shots are referred to as cutaways, and can be selected from another area in the clip, or completely different material, often referred to as B-roll because it is not the primary footage.

The first step in covering a jump cut is to mark the location in the Timeline where you want the cutaway to go. Then you choose the source you want to use for the cutaway and set an In point. In the Amanda sequence you edited in Lesson 2, you edited two shots (of the man) next to each other in order to create the correct soundtrack of him talking and then singing. To cover that jump cut, you will edit a cutaway of Amanda listening to the man.

1.	In the Sequences bin in the Browser, double-click to open the Amanda Cutaways sequence. This sequence should look familiar to you from Lesson 2.
2.	In the Timeline, drag the playhead to the second green marker. This marker identifies the edit point that jumps from one image of the man to a similar image of the man. In the Canvas image area, notice that the name of the marker is displayed. In the Canvas scrubber bar, the marker appears yellow when the playhead is positioned directly over it.
3.	Play around this edit point. The audio track is good, but the video needs to be improved by adding a cutaway to cover this jump cut.
4.	Set an In point in the Timeline somewhere before the edit point that jumps, and set an Out point just after the edit point. This identifies the area you will cover up with a shot of Amanda.
5.	Open the 98A-amanda clip, and find a nice facial reaction that you can use for the cutaway. Set an In point at that location.
6.	To edit only the video, make sure the a1 and a2 source controls are disconnected from the audio destination tracks.
7.	Edit the cutaway as an Overwrite edit, and play the new edit. Now the adjacent placement of the two 98B-man clips is not distracting because you cut away to Amanda, in between them. You can also use a cutaway to break up a longer action in one clip, such as when the man is singing.
8.	Play past this new edit into the following clip of the man singing. Set an In point around 1:01:18:08.
9.	In the 98A-amanda clip in the Viewer, find the place where Amanda mouths the words to this song. Set an In point at that location. Set an Out point when she stops mouthing.
10.	Edit the clip as a video-only Overwrite edit, and play the new clip.

NOTE

In another lesson, you will learn how to adjust the placement of these two cutaways.

Project Practice

To continue practicing what you've learned in this lesson, open the Intro Starting Backup sequence, and mark the narration in the Timeline. These marks will be for video clip length and placement. You will then mark the source video clips for content. Use clips from all three clips bins to edit a different version of this sequence.

Remember to save your project before you close it or quit Final Cut Pro.