Premiere Pro · Cutting and the timeline
How to add b-roll in Premiere Pro
Short answer
Put the interview on V1 and lay b-roll on V2 above it. Drag only the video of each b-roll clip, so the interview's audio keeps playing underneath.
In Premiere Pro
01
Load the b-roll
Double-click the b-roll clip to open it in the Source Monitor and mark the part you want with I and O.
02
Take the picture only
Drag the Drag Video Only icon (the film strip under the Source Monitor) to V2 above the interview, so no b-roll audio comes with it.
03
Line it up
Place it over the line it illustrates. Trim the ends to the start and end of the thought.
04
Keep V1 visible where needed
Leave the speaker on screen for the moments that need a face, such as the start of an answer.
05
Add natural sound
If the b-roll's own sound helps, add it on another audio track and lower it under the voice.
Eddie AI
Do it in Eddie
Ask Eddie for b-roll, and it places it over the right lines.
Say "Add b-roll wherever they mention the product." Eddie lays picture-only overlays with the speaker's audio running underneath, using your own footage first, then stock from Pexels (or your Shutterstock account), then generated clips. In Premiere, the b-roll arrives as clips on the upper tracks.
Back to Premiere
Open the edit, click Export and choose Premiere. You get a Premiere project (.prproj) or the older Premiere XML. In the desktop app, Send to Premiere Pro builds the edit inside Premiere through Eddie's panel, which the app installs for you.
If you imported the footage through the desktop app, the timeline points at your original camera files, so Premiere relinks to them. If you uploaded on the web or pulled from cloud storage, it points at Eddie's proxy media; relink to those, not to the camera originals.
From the help center
Questions
- Which track should b-roll go on?
- V2 or above, over the interview on V1.
- How much b-roll is enough?
- Use it where it shows what the speaker describes. Eddie aims for roughly 70% coverage on a typical talking-head cut.