Add B-roll over your video

B-roll is footage laid over your main recording: the screen you are describing, a product shot, a cutaway. In Rooster it sits on its own lane above the main recording, so your voice carries on underneath.

Get the footage into the project

Add the files first: choose File > Add Media…, press Add in the Media rail, or drag files onto the Media rail. See Import video or audio.

Cover the words that need it

1. In the Media rail, click the clip to preview it.
2. In the script, select the words the B-roll should play over.
3. Press Cover the selected words under the preview.

The clip lands on the B-roll lane, starting where the words start and running to where they end, or for its own length if it is shorter - Rooster says when it falls short. A still image stretches to cover them all. B-roll already on the lane stays where it is.

In a project divided into scenes, selecting no words turns the button into Cover this scene, which covers the scene under the playhead.

Other ways to place it

• Add as new layer puts a video on the B-roll lane at the playhead, across the scene, from its start where there is room. A still image goes on a picture layer of its own.
• Drag a clip from the Media rail onto the timeline. A video or still goes to the B-roll lane at the time you drop it, whichever row you drop on - except a video dropped on the main recording's row, which becomes a second take of the main recording.

How long a still stays depends on how it was placed: across the scene, or four seconds from where you dropped it in a project with no scenes. Change it with Length under Duration in Adjust.

Sound

B-roll starts silent, so your narration is all you hear. To bring its sound up, select the clip and use Volume in the Sound section of Adjust, where you can also fade it in and out.

Adjust it

Select the clip on the canvas or the timeline. In Adjust you can change its opacity, size and position, crop, sound and speed. On the canvas, drag it to move it and drag its handles to resize it; the Transform menu above it sends it to a corner as picture-in-picture, or makes it fit or fill the scene.

When Rooster refuses

If the lane has no room where you asked - another clip is already there - Rooster says so and places nothing. A locked lane refuses too; unlock it in the Layers list.