The Jump You See and Can't Name
You were editing your video, and found a redundant sentence in the middle of your speech that you wanted to cut.
So you cut it.
Then played the section back to see the result.
The speech was genuinely better. But something odd happened in the picture: your head suddenly jumped from one position to another, your hand vanished from one place and reappeared in another, and your shoulder moved unnaturally.
You replayed it five times feeling something was wrong, without knowing how to fix it.
So you put the cut sentence back, because the picture mattered more.
And that's how your speech ended up longer than it needed to be, because you didn't have one tool that would have solved the whole problem.
What a Cutaway Actually Is
In a video where you talk to the camera, the main shot is your face. A cutaway is any other footage that appears while your voice continues: your hands working, the place you're describing, the object you're talking about, or an archive shot.
It's often called B-roll, and you'll hear that name a lot.
Job One: Letting the Viewer See What You're Saying
When you say "the street was crowded", the viewer hears the sentence. When you show a shot of the street, they understand it.
The rule: every time you mention something concrete, a place, an object, a person, that's an opportunity for a cutaway.
Job Two: Hiding the Cut
This is its most practically useful function, and it's exactly what was missing at the top of this article.
When you delete a sentence from the middle of your speech, a visual jump occurs: your head leaps from one position to another. And the viewer notices, even without knowing why.
The fix: lay a cutaway over the cut point. The audio continues uninterrupted, the picture covers the jump, and the video looks smooth.
Which means cutaways give you far more freedom to delete, and that's the essence of good editing, as covered in: editing basics: start by deleting, not adding.
Job Three: Resting the Eye
The same face in the same frame for ten continuous minutes tires a viewer, even when the words are excellent.
Changing the image periodically renews attention. And the change doesn't have to be spectacular, a simple shot of the location is enough.
How Many Do You Need?
The practical rule for a beginner: one cutaway per main point in your script.
So if your video has five points, film at least five cutaways. And film each one longer than you think, ten seconds for a shot you'll use three seconds of, because the beginning and end usually get trimmed.
And Where Do They Come From?
Film them yourself. Always best, and easier than it sounds: once you've finished talking, film whatever's around you that you mentioned.
Or from your own archive. Shots you filmed on previous projects, which is a good reason to organise and keep your files.
Or from licensed libraries. Ready-made clips with a usage licence, and pay attention to the licence terms just as you would with music.
And don't take them from someone else's video without permission or a licence. It's exactly like music.
Common Mistakes
A beautiful shot with no connection. A stunning sunset while you're talking about task scheduling. The viewer gets absorbed in the image and forgets your words.
Excessive length. A cutaway running twenty seconds makes the viewer forget you exist. The rule: three to five seconds usually.
Repetition. Using the same shot three times in one video feels threadbare.
Complete coverage. A video that's all cutaways with no sight of you loses the relationship between you and the viewer. Appear from time to time.
And late timing. Showing the shot after you've finished talking about its subject. The shot should appear while you're mentioning the thing, not afterwards.
Write Them Into Your Shot List
The biggest mistake is leaving cutaways to chance on location. You come back from filming and discover in the edit that half your speech has no picture.
Write the shot that supports each point in your script, before you go out to film. And how to build that list is covered in: from script to shot list: the bridge between writing and filming.
In Short
A cutaway isn't decoration, it's a tool: it explains, it hides cuts, it rests the eye.
And ask one question of every shot before you place it: what does this add here?
If you can't find an answer, you in frame is better than it.