Pick b-roll from the timeline

B-roll used to be an act of faith: you asked for a shot in chat, Eddie went and found something, and the first time you saw it was when it was already in your edit. Now you choose it on the timeline, from clips you can play, before a single frame is imported.

Open the picker on a clip

1. Open an edit and switch to the timeline view.
2. Hover the clip you want covered. A small ✨ appears in its top-right corner.
3. Click it, then choose Cover with b-roll — or Generate AI b-roll if you already know you want a generated shot.

The picker opens as B-roll for this beat, with the line your speaker says on that clip quoted under the title, so you can see exactly what the shot has to cover. The beat's length sits next to the title.

To cover a run of clips, select them first — Shift-click a range or Cmd/Ctrl-click individual clips — then hit the ✨ on any selected clip. Where sequences are switched on for your workspace, two or more clips open a shot-list board instead of the single picker.

What's in the picker

• The shot. A box for describing the footage you want — "hands on a keyboard, close, soft light". Leave it empty and Eddie searches from what the clip says. Search stock runs the search again with your wording.
• Orientation. Landscape or portrait. It starts from your project and you can switch it per search.
• From stock libraries. Free clips from Pexels, plus your own Shutterstock catalogue if you have connected a key. Tiles play on hover. The first three are shown and Show more reveals the rest. This strip is always free to add from.
• Generated takes. Where AI generation is available to you, the footer offers a quality tier and one priced button — Generate 3 previews · N credits. Takes stream in as tiles as each one renders. Nothing is charged until you press that button.

Under each tile Eddie notes what matters for the cut: the clip's length, shorter than the beat if it won't cover the whole line, and used elsewhere if that shot is already on your timeline.

Pick, then add

Select the tiles you want and press Add N clips. Nothing lands on the cut until you do — searching and generating change nothing on their own. Chosen clips transfer in the background and then appear on the b-roll overlay track over the beat you sparked, with your speaker's audio running underneath. From there they trim, move and swap like any other b-roll — see Add b-roll and overlays.

If a search finds nothing usable for a moment, Eddie says so rather than padding your project with filler, and offers generation as the other option.

For the whole edit

The ✨ on the b-roll lane's rail (the Generate B-roll button beside the track) opens the same picker as B-roll for this edit, with no beat selected. Clips you add from there go to your project's b-roll sources rather than onto a specific clip — ask Eddie to place them, or spark a clip on the timeline to put one exactly where you want it.

Keep working while it runs

Close the picker whenever you like. While takes are rendering, a small pill at the bottom of the editor shows the progress — "Generating 2 of 3 b-roll takes" — with a Show link back to the picker, and becomes Pick a clip once they're ready. Stock clips that are still transferring show their own progress the same way, and Eddie tells you when they land.

Good to know

• You need edit access to the project to search or add b-roll. Viewers of a shared link see the timeline but not the picker.
• Stock searching and importing costs no credits. Generated takes do, and the price is on the button before you press it.
• Up to 5 stock clips can be added per pick; open the picker again for more.
• Chat still does all of this — "cover the jump cut at 0:45 with b-roll" — and both paths edit the same cut.

Next: Find stock b-roll · Generate AI b-roll · Plan a b-roll sequence.