The Live Mic: Insights on Casting
Riot·3/13/2015, 7:30:16 PM·0 votes·5,486 views
It takes a lot to be a good caster. Charm, presence, enthusiasm, even endurance -- and not just for the occasional hour-long matches, nor the super-weeks of prior seasons. As the end of the spring split approaches, tiebreaker matches and best-of-five grand finals promise a long day's worth of work for casters all over the world.
But those are just the baseline requirements. The art of shoutcasting has many approaches and influences to each individual caster.
"I was a sports fan for most of my life, and just tried to mimic traditional sports analyst casting," said Jatt. "Since I began casting, I take the majority of my influence from traditional sports commentators. I try to mimic Cris Collinsworth as much as possible." Collinsworth is best known as NBC's Emmy award-winning football caster (and played for the Cincinnati Bengals in the 1980s).
To Jatt, the caster's job is to highlight the essential nature of a match -- the context of the statistics, rather than the stats themselves. "I used to heavily focus on game interactions and predictions when I began casting. Now I focus more on story and flow while maintaining reference to predictions and game mechanics when they are unique. As esports evolves, I feel like it becomes more about story and history -- even my job as a shoutcaster is to be true to the game and story, and enhance the viewing experience."
Martin "Deficio" Lynge of the EU LCS previously held down bot lane as Copenhagen Wolves' support, then transitioning into coaching for Ninjas in Pyjamas before joining the LCS's casting crew. But in contrast to Jatt's narrative approach, Deficio focuses on informative highlights. As League of Legends has a high burden of knowledge demand for even its spectators, with hundreds of unique spell interactions and increasingly complex strategies, even committed viewers can easily get lost in the action.
"I want to make sure I can explain nearly everything going on in the screen," said Deficio. "So when it comes to a lane swap: I want to be able to go in and explain the different kinds of lane swaps there are, why certain teams choose one option, and what the other team should do to try and counter it. I want to try also predicting what's going to happen here, which means the viewer can follow the story."
Deficio stressed that while his prior playing career might have been initially helpful, his casting is now largely dependent on new research. "I feel like it's a bonus being a [former] pro player, because you have more of that knowledge just by being the player and being with the team and playing these matchups yourself. But the game changes so much all the time. Now I was a pro player back in Season 3. That's, again, about two years ago now. The game back then compared to now is so very different."
How much different? Enough to incite a little professional jealousy. Deficio relies on the expertise of current pro players for his preparations. "I feel like I have some starting knowledge, which is great, but the longer you cast the farther you fall behind, and you constantly have to find new information and update yourself on the current patches all the time." He notes that current players practice, scrim and solo queue for ten hours a day to get a first-hand reckoning of the state of every patch.
But the casting approach isn't without its benefits. "I feel like I've learned so much by being a caster compared to when I was a pro player, when you have a bit of a tunnel vision."
In contrast to Deficio and Jatt, Doa's story is more "traditional" for esports. While it is now common for players to transition into the casting role, where their natural expertise is in hot demand, many of the best-known casters got in for the love of casting itself -- and from way back into esports history in general. Leigh “Deman” Smith, Joe Miller and many others can still recall the days when "shoutcasting" referred specifically to the use of the SHOUTcast Winamp plugin to record over matches, uploading it later on Youtube or other sites.
"I started casting in October of 2010, and started doing it professionally in March of 2011," said Doa, who got his start with the Starcraft 2 scene. "Early on, I just did SC2 casts for my YouTube channel and live-streamed some small online North American tournaments from my house." Cross-disciplinary casting isn't unusual for the scene's veteran casters -- Doa's partner in crime, analyst Christopher "MonteCristo" Mykles, got his start with the Warcraft 3 scene -- and their extensive history with esports lends to the style and culture they represent in their casting.
Doa's work and style is also an influence for those whose scenes are still just starting out, especially for Clement Chu, former analyst for Evil Geniuses and Ninja in Pyjamas, now one of the color commentators of the League of Legends Master Series held in Taipei. "I really like the Doa/MonteCristo style of cast, where you have a play-by-play caster who's funny and easy to listen to, and you have a color caster who's focused more on ban/picks and macro-side strategy stuff.”
"I'm actually fairly new in terms of casting," said Clement. "I have done -- not really casting, but talking about the game in terms of reviews for certain teams. But casting was something new. In terms of getting a style, it's something I'm working on as well." In fact, most LMS casters straddle the halfway point between classic caster and ex-pros. The broadcast crew is led by Wang "MrRemember" Chi-te, the LMS's primary full-time caster and former analyst for the Yoe Flash Wolves during their Season 3 World Championship run, who's recruited others like him to staff the mic.
MrRemember's researched expertise and analytical background lays the foundation for the LMS's Mandarin-language broadcast. "It's actually really easy to cast with him, just because he knows so much about the game that he can help you hit commentary balls out of the park really easily," said Clement. "He knows the good questions to ask, and the questions that are going to lead into in-depth discussions." For the LMS, the play-by-play caster doesn't just set the pace and structure of the broadcast, but is the captain of the proverbial ship, in charge of directing its progression.
In the end, the disparity in specializations and conduct between the analytical commentator and play-by-play caster, or between ex-pros and career casters, doesn’t mean a disparity in goals. MrRemember’s careful pitches and Doa’s humorous anecdotes are designed with the same purpose: to meld entertainment and information in unique ways for the enjoyment of the viewer.
Veteran's Authority
As is with sports commentary in other fields, one of the most common ways to get into casting is to first get off the stage and hang up your uniform and sportswear. For Joshua “Jatt” Leesman, stepping down from Dignitas’s original lineup in 2012 was a step towards following the path laid out by the commentators he admires.
"I was a sports fan for most of my life, and just tried to mimic traditional sports analyst casting," said Jatt. "Since I began casting, I take the majority of my influence from traditional sports commentators. I try to mimic Cris Collinsworth as much as possible." Collinsworth is best known as NBC's Emmy award-winning football caster (and played for the Cincinnati Bengals in the 1980s).
To Jatt, the caster's job is to highlight the essential nature of a match -- the context of the statistics, rather than the stats themselves. "I used to heavily focus on game interactions and predictions when I began casting. Now I focus more on story and flow while maintaining reference to predictions and game mechanics when they are unique. As esports evolves, I feel like it becomes more about story and history -- even my job as a shoutcaster is to be true to the game and story, and enhance the viewing experience."
Martin "Deficio" Lynge of the EU LCS previously held down bot lane as Copenhagen Wolves' support, then transitioning into coaching for Ninjas in Pyjamas before joining the LCS's casting crew. But in contrast to Jatt's narrative approach, Deficio focuses on informative highlights. As League of Legends has a high burden of knowledge demand for even its spectators, with hundreds of unique spell interactions and increasingly complex strategies, even committed viewers can easily get lost in the action.
"I want to make sure I can explain nearly everything going on in the screen," said Deficio. "So when it comes to a lane swap: I want to be able to go in and explain the different kinds of lane swaps there are, why certain teams choose one option, and what the other team should do to try and counter it. I want to try also predicting what's going to happen here, which means the viewer can follow the story."
Deficio stressed that while his prior playing career might have been initially helpful, his casting is now largely dependent on new research. "I feel like it's a bonus being a [former] pro player, because you have more of that knowledge just by being the player and being with the team and playing these matchups yourself. But the game changes so much all the time. Now I was a pro player back in Season 3. That's, again, about two years ago now. The game back then compared to now is so very different."
How much different? Enough to incite a little professional jealousy. Deficio relies on the expertise of current pro players for his preparations. "I feel like I have some starting knowledge, which is great, but the longer you cast the farther you fall behind, and you constantly have to find new information and update yourself on the current patches all the time." He notes that current players practice, scrim and solo queue for ten hours a day to get a first-hand reckoning of the state of every patch.
But the casting approach isn't without its benefits. "I feel like I've learned so much by being a caster compared to when I was a pro player, when you have a bit of a tunnel vision."
Homegrown Talent
It’s worth noting that former pro players turned caster turn almost invariably to the color commentary position, where the analytically focused aspects of the job plays off their former careers. But they don’t work alone -- and the skillset required of their partners is complementary, not identical. "If you think of it like a sandwich, the analyst provides the peanut butter and jelly, while the play-by-play is the bread that holds it together," said Erik "DoA" Lonnquist of South Korea's Champions circuit. If Jatt's flavorful story-centric approach and Deficio's dense analytical research is the filling, somebody has to provide the framing bread for the audience to grasp it and care about the narrative in the first place. "As play by play, my main focus is on entertaining and giving the cast a structure. I try to give the audience a reason to be excited for the match beforehand, and a reason to have enjoyed the game afterwards."
In contrast to Deficio and Jatt, Doa's story is more "traditional" for esports. While it is now common for players to transition into the casting role, where their natural expertise is in hot demand, many of the best-known casters got in for the love of casting itself -- and from way back into esports history in general. Leigh “Deman” Smith, Joe Miller and many others can still recall the days when "shoutcasting" referred specifically to the use of the SHOUTcast Winamp plugin to record over matches, uploading it later on Youtube or other sites.
"I started casting in October of 2010, and started doing it professionally in March of 2011," said Doa, who got his start with the Starcraft 2 scene. "Early on, I just did SC2 casts for my YouTube channel and live-streamed some small online North American tournaments from my house." Cross-disciplinary casting isn't unusual for the scene's veteran casters -- Doa's partner in crime, analyst Christopher "MonteCristo" Mykles, got his start with the Warcraft 3 scene -- and their extensive history with esports lends to the style and culture they represent in their casting.
Doa's work and style is also an influence for those whose scenes are still just starting out, especially for Clement Chu, former analyst for Evil Geniuses and Ninja in Pyjamas, now one of the color commentators of the League of Legends Master Series held in Taipei. "I really like the Doa/MonteCristo style of cast, where you have a play-by-play caster who's funny and easy to listen to, and you have a color caster who's focused more on ban/picks and macro-side strategy stuff.”
"I'm actually fairly new in terms of casting," said Clement. "I have done -- not really casting, but talking about the game in terms of reviews for certain teams. But casting was something new. In terms of getting a style, it's something I'm working on as well." In fact, most LMS casters straddle the halfway point between classic caster and ex-pros. The broadcast crew is led by Wang "MrRemember" Chi-te, the LMS's primary full-time caster and former analyst for the Yoe Flash Wolves during their Season 3 World Championship run, who's recruited others like him to staff the mic.
MrRemember's researched expertise and analytical background lays the foundation for the LMS's Mandarin-language broadcast. "It's actually really easy to cast with him, just because he knows so much about the game that he can help you hit commentary balls out of the park really easily," said Clement. "He knows the good questions to ask, and the questions that are going to lead into in-depth discussions." For the LMS, the play-by-play caster doesn't just set the pace and structure of the broadcast, but is the captain of the proverbial ship, in charge of directing its progression.
In the end, the disparity in specializations and conduct between the analytical commentator and play-by-play caster, or between ex-pros and career casters, doesn’t mean a disparity in goals. MrRemember’s careful pitches and Doa’s humorous anecdotes are designed with the same purpose: to meld entertainment and information in unique ways for the enjoyment of the viewer.
