Generate AI b-roll

Some moments have no footage. You didn't shoot it, and stock doesn't have it either — the specific thing your speaker is describing just isn't in anyone's library. When that happens, Eddie can generate a short b-roll clip for you.

It's the last of the three supplies, not the first: your own footage is best, stock is free or already paid for, and generated clips cost credits. But when nothing else covers a line, this covers it.

How to ask for it

The quickest way is from the timeline:

1. Hover the clip you want covered — or select a run of clips — and hit the ✨.
2. Choose Generate AI b-roll.
3. In the picker, pick a quality tier and press Generate 3 previews. The price is on the button.

Eddie reads what those clips actually say and works out the shot from there, so you don't have to describe anything. A line about a delivery driver's morning becomes a specific, filmable shot rather than a vague search phrase. If you have a shot in your head, put it in The shot box first — a specific brief gets a far better clip than a general one. See Pick b-roll from the timeline for the rest of the picker.

You can also ask in chat — "generate a b-roll clip of rain on a windshield for the intro" — and describe the shot yourself.

It costs credits, and Eddie always asks first

Generating video costs real money, so the price is stated before anything happens. From the timeline that's the number on the Generate button; in chat, Eddie quotes it and waits for a yes. Nothing is generated until you say go.

Eddie generates on Best by default: Seedance 2.5 at 720p, or at 480p when your main footage is smaller than 720p. A generated clip on Best is never sharper than the footage it sits in, and Eddie tells you which model it chose and why. 4K clips are made only if you ask for them — about 1,162 credits for 8 seconds. If you want a different model or size, pick Standard (Seedance 2.0 at 1080p, or Seedance 2.0 Fast at 720p when your footage is smaller than 1080p) or Budget (Veo 3.1 Lite, 720p) in the picker, or ask Eddie for it — naming the model works too. Hovering a tier shows the model behind it. Each has its own price per clip, and the tiers are not in price order — for a full 8-second clip, about 346 credits on Best (154 with footage smaller than 720p), 559 on Standard (136 with footage smaller than 1080p) and 75 on Budget — and the button always shows the total for the tier you've chosen.

A round is three takes

From the timeline, one press renders three takes of the same shot from the tier you chose, so you get a choice rather than a single roll of the dice. Each take is its own clip and its own charge — all three are paid for whether you keep one, two, or none. Picking a take and adding it to the cut costs nothing more; it's already paid.

It takes a minute or two

Generation runs in the background. The picker shows each take as it finishes, and you can close it and keep editing — a pill at the bottom of the editor tracks the progress and brings you back when they're ready. A finished take you add lands on the b-roll track over the clip you sparked and behaves like any other footage from then on: trim it, move it, ask Eddie to cover a different line with it. From chat, generation usually takes 1 to 6 minutes and the clip lands in your project's b-roll sources instead, ready to place: spark a clip on the timeline, or ask Eddie to put it where you want it.

Keep the same person or product across clips

Prompt text alone can't keep a subject the same: two clips of "a red-haired runner in a teal jacket" are two different people. For a set of shots that must match, like a brand ad with one runner, one shoe and one forest, give Eddie reference images. The video model sees them, so the subject stays the same in every clip.

In chat, tell Eddie what to match and where it is:

• A frame of your footage, e.g. "use the runner at 0:12 in Interview A as the reference". Pick a frame where the subject is large and clear.
• A photo in your project, like a product shot you imported.
• An earlier generated clip, once it has landed in your project.
• A public image link (JPEG, PNG or WebP).

Up to three references go on one clip, each with a name ("runner", "shoe") so Eddie knows which is which. Ask Eddie to save them as the project's look. Later you only have to say "same runner as before", in the same chat or a new one, and Eddie uses the saved look. References are only used on clips where you ask for them.

Clips with references render on Veo 3.1 Fast, and they are always 8 seconds long. It's the model that keeps a person the same; Seedance refuses reference images of real people. On Best that's 1080p, about 149 credits (720p for smaller footage, about 119). On Standard it's 720p, about 119. 4K is about 372, on request. Budget can't use references. Eddie quotes the price with and without references before anything is generated. Only use photos of people who agreed to it.

Regenerating costs the same again

Generative video is high-variance. The same prompt can give you something beautiful or something slightly wrong, and there's no way to know until it renders. Be honest with yourself about that before you spend.

So the rules are plain:

• Every regeneration is a new, full-price charge. There are no free retries — Regenerate is asking for another round, and another round costs what a round costs.
• Credits are refunded only if a take fails to render. That includes the provider refusing the shot on content-policy grounds — you don't pay for a clip that never came back. Each take is refunded on its own, so one failed take out of three refunds one take.
• Credits are not refunded because you don't like the result. A clip that renders is a clip you bought.

The best defence is a specific request. "A slow push in on rain running down a car windshield at night, city lights blurred behind it" gets you far closer than "something about the commute".

One more thing that saves money: prompts naming real people, brands, logos or products tend to get refused by the provider, so Eddie writes shots around them. If stock footage would already cover the moment well, Eddie says so first — the stock strip in the same picker is free.

Rights and disclosure

Generated clips are AI-generated footage, and you should treat them as such.

• Eddie labels generated clips as AI-generated in the file's metadata. A generated clip, and a cloud MP4 export that contains one, carry the standard IPTC "AI-generated" metadata (the digital source type, in the file's XMP). Desktop MP4 exports and NLE project files do not, and Eddie adds no visible watermark. C2PA content credentials are available through enterprise agreements; contact sales to get them. Eddie records inside your project that the clip is generated, and lists it under "Generated b-roll clips" in the export menu. That record is not stamped on the exported video.
• The model's own watermark is the model provider's, not Eddie's. Some models mark their output with an invisible watermark (Google's SynthID, for example). Eddie does not add, check or promise it, and cannot say whether it survives an export.
• Disclosure is your responsibility. Most platforms — YouTube and TikTok among them — require creators to disclose realistic synthetic media, and their rules change faster than this page does. Check the rules of wherever you're publishing and label your video accordingly.

Limits

• Clips are short — a few seconds each, meant to cover a line or two, not a scene.
• They're generated in the orientation set in the picker, landscape or portrait. The single-clip picker starts on landscape, so switch it for a vertical project.
• They have no audio. Generated b-roll sits under your dialogue.
• There's a daily cap on how many clips a workspace can generate, so a stray instruction can't run up a bill. Eddie tells you the number and when it resets if you hit it.
• You need a minimum credit balance before Eddie will generate at all — enough that a clip can't leave you stranded mid-project. See How credits work.
• You need edit access to the project.
• If you don't see a Generate button in the picker, generation isn't switched on for your workspace; the stock strip still works.

Related: Find stock b-roll, Add b-roll and overlays, Pick b-roll from the timeline, Generate with Eddie.