Guide
A cutaway is an answer, not a texture
A cutaway earns its place when a sentence raised a question and the shot answers it. Not near the sentence. On the exact words that raised it. Here are the three moments you never cover, the coverage ceiling by pace, and a twelve-minute sourcing method that replaces forty minutes of browsing. You will know where every clip goes before you start looking for one.
- Coverage ceiling by pace: chill, normal, fast
- 40/45/52%
- Phrases in a thirty-second ad that raise a visual question
- 3-6
- Working length of a cutaway in a fast vertical ad
- 1-2 sec
The test is whether the sentence raised a question the shot answers
The viewer has been handed a noun they want to see. You say the packaging is too big. Now they want to see the packaging. You say the queue at the post office. Showing them one confirms rather than distracts.
If the sentence raised no question, the cutaway is competing with your speaker instead of supporting them.
So b-roll lands on specific words, not on a general area of the video. A shot of a kitchen appearing three seconds after the word kitchen is a mistake the viewer feels but cannot name.
There is one more legitimate job. It is the oldest use of b-roll there is. Covering a join. Remove a sentence from the middle of a continuous shot and the speaker's head jumps.
A clip over the seam makes the removal invisible. That is structural. It is why coverage clusters around your cuts rather than spreading evenly.
Three moments where cutting away costs you money
They are also the moments people cut away from most, because they feel like the boring bits. Learn them by name: the credibility beat, the hook, and the ask.
Stay on the face for the credibility beat. When the speaker says the sentence that requires you to believe them, the evidence is their expression. Cover it and you removed the proof.
Stay on the face for the hook. The first two seconds establish who is talking to you, and a cutaway there spends the moment on scenery.
Stay on the face for the ask. When you tell someone what to do, being looked at matters.
Everything between those three is fair game, and that is most of the ad.
When to cut away, and when the face is the evidence
Three moments carry the persuasion. Cover any of them and you removed the thing the viewer was weighing.
| Cut away here | Stay on the face here | |
|---|---|---|
| The opening | Never. The viewer is deciding who is talking | The first two seconds, without exception |
| A named object | Yes, on the exact words that named it | Not needed. The noun did the work |
| The credibility beat | No. The expression is the proof | The sentence you need to be believed on |
| A join in the read | Yes. That is what covers the jump | Only if the join is inaudible anyway |
| The ask | No. Being looked at is the point | The last line, every time |
This is the whole editor
Highlight a phrase and a clip lands on those exact words. No timeline, no keyframes, no layers.
Past half the runtime, the person you were listening to has left the ad
Past a certain share of runtime, cutaways stop feeling energetic. They start feeling like a slideshow with narration. The speaker disappears. The ad reads as stock footage with a voice over the top.
Cutroom caps coverage by pace for that reason. 40 percent at a chill pace, 45 at normal, 52 at fast. Faster edits tolerate more cutting. The shots are shorter and the rhythm carries them.
You do not need the tool to use the numbers. If more than half of your ad is not the person speaking, look again at what you have made.
There is a second ceiling per clip. One to two seconds is the working range in a fast vertical ad. A shot needing three seconds to be understood is the wrong shot for this format.
- Cut on the word, not near it.
- Never cover the hook, the proof or the ask.
- Prefer one shot that answers a question over three that fill time.
- Match the energy of the cutaway to the pace of the edit.
- If a clip is doing nothing, remove it. Static and clear beats busy and vague.
How much of the runtime b-roll may take
The caps by pace. Above half, the person you were paying attention to has left the ad.
- Chill pace40%
- Normal pace45%
- Fast pace52%
Twelve minutes of searching, not forty, and your own phone beats the library
Searching is the most reliable way to lose an hour. The search has no natural end. The discipline is deciding what you need before you start looking.
Mark the phrases in your script that raise a visual question. There will be fewer than you expect. Usually three to six in a thirty-second ad.
Search only for those. Take the first shot that genuinely answers the question and move on. The perfect clip is worth about two minutes of searching and no more.
Six phrases at two minutes each is twelve minutes of sourcing, against the forty most people spend. Put a timer on it if you have to.
Your own phone footage beats a library almost every time, even shot badly. Viewers grade authenticity far more harshly than they grade production. Twenty minutes filming your own cutaways once ends most of the searching.
Two ways to source footage for one thirty-second ad
Same ad, same six placements. The difference is whether you decided what you needed before you started looking.
- Marking the phrases first3 min
- Six searches, two minutes each12 min
- Browsing with no end point40 min
Clips land on the words, which is the thing a timeline cannot promise
This is the part Cutroom does that nothing else does. Highlight a phrase in the transcript and a clip lands over exactly those words. Not near them. On them.
That solves the failure at the top of this page by construction. A shot cannot arrive three seconds after the noun, because the shot is anchored to the noun.
The search collapses too. Swap the clip in any spot, or search millions of free ones, or drop in the twenty seconds you filmed on your own counter.
Coverage is capped by pace rather than by preference. 40 percent at chill, 45 at normal, 52 at fast, so the ad cannot quietly turn into a slideshow while you are enjoying yourself.
The facts to plan around. The source is one talking-head take of up to three minutes and somebody has to record it. Every export is a 9:16 MP4. There is no timeline to nudge a clip half a second left, because placement is anchored to words instead.
The choosing stays yours. Mark a generic phrase and you get a generic clip. Deciding which sentence deserved a picture is the part of this page that is still work.
Questions people ask
- Does b-roll improve retention?
- Well-placed cutaways can hold attention through the middle of an ad, where drop-off is steepest. Decorative cutaways do not, and heavy coverage can hurt by removing the human the viewer was following. Placement matters more than quantity.
- Is stock footage acceptable in an ad meant to look authentic?
- In small doses and only for the literal thing being described. Generic aspirational stock reads as an advert instantly. If the shot could appear in any ad in any category, it is working against the tone you want.
- How long should each cutaway be?
- Long enough to be read and no longer, which is one to two seconds in a fast vertical ad. If you need three seconds to understand a shot, it is the wrong shot for this format.
- Should the cutaway have its own sound?
- Usually not. Ambience from the clip fights the speaker and the music, and in a sound-off feed it buys you nothing. Keep the voice clean and let the picture do the work.
- Who needs a timeline rather than a transcript for this?
- Anyone whose ad is mostly footage with narration over it. If the cutaways are the ad, use an editing suite. Word-anchored placement is built for the case where a person is speaking and the pictures answer them.
A cutaway should answer a question, not fill a gap. Mark the phrase and the answer lands on it, which is the placement no timeline can promise you by hand.