Hey all, looking to make some content (videos or livestreams) where I explore the world of broadcast, both in the context of TF2 and esports as a whole. What kind of questions do you have about TF2 broadcasting/production? Esports broadcast in general (LAN and online)? What parts of the viewer experience would you be interested in seeing the flipside of?
TF2 Broadcast Q/A
posted in
TF2 General Discussion
Hey all, looking to make some content (videos or livestreams) where I explore the world of broadcast, both in the context of TF2 and esports as a whole. What kind of questions do you have about TF2 broadcasting/production? Esports broadcast in general (LAN and online)? What parts of the viewer experience would you be interested in seeing the flipside of?
I think a guide on observing with tips and tricks that you or others have picked up would be really interesting
I think a guide on observing with tips and tricks that you or others have picked up would be really interesting
Sounds interesting, here are a few questions I thought about.
- What is the difference between a good and a great broadcaster?
- What is the hardest part about working production/broadcasting?
- What motivates you to create content and host events for TF2 and not any other game?
- Has being a caster / hosting LANs / making videos about TF2 ever helped anyone professionally get a job or give them opportunities in different esports?
- Do you think that there is a demand for more TF2 content?
- Is there a shortage of Broadcasters / Producers (In TF2 or concerning esports as a whole)
Sounds interesting, here are a few questions I thought about.
- What is the difference between a good and a great broadcaster?
- What is the hardest part about working production/broadcasting?
- What motivates you to create content and host events for TF2 and not any other game?
- Has being a caster / hosting LANs / making videos about TF2 ever helped anyone professionally get a job or give them opportunities in different esports?
- Do you think that there is a demand for more TF2 content?
- Is there a shortage of Broadcasters / Producers (In TF2 or concerning esports as a whole)
- What is the difference between a good and a great broadcaster?
- What is the hardest part about working production/broadcasting?
- What motivates you to create content and host events for TF2 and not any other game?
- Has being a caster / hosting LANs / making videos about TF2 ever helped anyone professionally get a job or give them opportunities in different esports?
- Do you think that there is a demand for more TF2 content?
- Is there a shortage of Broadcasters / Producers (In TF2 or concerning esports as a whole)
UBER_CAKESounds interesting, here are a few questions I thought about.
- What is the difference between a good and a great broadcaster?
- What is the hardest part about working production/broadcasting?
- What motivates you to create content and host events for TF2 and not any other game?
- Has being a caster / hosting LANs / making videos about TF2 ever helped anyone professionally get a job or give them opportunities in different esports?
- Do you think that there is a demand for more TF2 content?
- Is there a shortage of Broadcasters / Producers (In TF2 or concerning esports as a whole)
I'll answer these with my own anecdotal experience from doing ozfortress stuff
1) imo it's both organization pre-cast and ability to coherently spectate during a game. pre-cast stuff is a multitude of things but the things I tried to focus on leading up to a cast was:
- picking out casters ahead of time based on division, their relative skill level, perceived/known cohesion with their co-caster. Last thing you want are two low-level casters casting a high level game. Or two people who both have playbyplay styles of commentary etc
- knowing at the beginning of the week what game you're interested in producing ahead of time and organizing ASAP
- having all your backend stuff setup an hour before show: twitch titles, scoreboard and other nodecg stuff etc
- getting casters in ~30min ahead of the match just so you dont have to hunt them down
Being organized and ready to go well ahead of time saves you a lot of pain.
In game you really want to be following the flow of the match and adjust your camera based on what the state of the game is. My general spectator theory is that you want your camera to be on the team on the offensive during the push - so if Blu is pushing Red 2nd, get on a Blu combo player. If the tide turns and blu is retreating get on a red camera etc. Helps keep the game exciting.
As well, there's a few other things:
- Being confident with ce_autocamera tools (static 3rd person cameras)
- Making sure you keep track of players who have gone behind or are hiding etc
- not "panic hopping" between cameras and being OK with letting the scene play out as is.
- getting on the camera of the team that's captured last/won the game before the point is capped/game is over. Just ensures that the victory music always plays and never the boos.
- not overly relying on cheatfeed if you use it
There's a lot of minutiae for casting and other things I won't list for the sake of brevity.
2) Hardest part is just how random TF2 can be to spectate. sometimes on mids you'll be on one camera and the entire fight happens on someone else's and you catch nothing at all. It can be hard to know what camera to be on at all. KOTH is especially tricky. Otherwise every other issue is alleviated by proper planning and execution.
3) i produced a lot of ozfortress/fbtf games last year and earlier this year because i was so tired of grinding the game but i still wanted to be involved and saw it as a useful way of staying involved without having to do demo reviews of any sort. this stupid game still captivates me a decade on.
4) Sideshow, Bren are the most prominent examples. I don't think eXtine has had big opportunities for casting but I would imagine all the work he's put into TF2 over the years has bolstered his resume significantly and helped him get non-casting roles in esports. Wiethoofd gets paid to do EA NHL esport games. The skills you pick up from producing are immediately translatable to other aspects of esports/broadcasting as a whole, you just need to market it.
5) I think there's a big untapped market in Tiktok and Instagram for highlight reel/big play style videos. RGL has started doing something along those lines on tiktok but I think there's a lot of potential there. Generally I think the more comp TF2 content that isnt just frag videos/casts that is out there the better. If you build it etc
6) For TF2 yes, especially for smaller regions. It's understandable though, not everyone wants to invest the time it takes to learn all the small things about production, and even if you did want to, you need a beefy computer to run OBS/TF2/etc. The scene could always use more producers and could always use more commentators knowledgable about the game (or at least are good enough at playbyplay that they can get a high level analyst to fill in the gaps)
[quote=UBER_CAKE]Sounds interesting, here are a few questions I thought about.
- What is the difference between a good and a great broadcaster?
- What is the hardest part about working production/broadcasting?
- What motivates you to create content and host events for TF2 and not any other game?
- Has being a caster / hosting LANs / making videos about TF2 ever helped anyone professionally get a job or give them opportunities in different esports?
- Do you think that there is a demand for more TF2 content?
- Is there a shortage of Broadcasters / Producers (In TF2 or concerning esports as a whole)[/quote]
I'll answer these with my own anecdotal experience from doing ozfortress stuff
1) imo it's both organization pre-cast and ability to coherently spectate during a game. pre-cast stuff is a multitude of things but the things I tried to focus on leading up to a cast was:
[list]
[*] picking out casters ahead of time based on division, their relative skill level, perceived/known cohesion with their co-caster. Last thing you want are two low-level casters casting a high level game. Or two people who both have playbyplay styles of commentary etc
[*] knowing at the beginning of the week what game you're interested in producing ahead of time and organizing ASAP
[*] having all your backend stuff setup an hour before show: twitch titles, scoreboard and other nodecg stuff etc
[*] getting casters in ~30min ahead of the match [i]just[/i] so you dont have to hunt them down
[/list]
Being organized and ready to go well ahead of time saves you a lot of pain.
In game you really want to be following the flow of the match and adjust your camera based on what the state of the game is. My general spectator theory is that you want your camera to be on the team on the offensive during the push - so if Blu is pushing Red 2nd, get on a Blu combo player. If the tide turns and blu is retreating get on a red camera etc. Helps keep the game exciting.
As well, there's a few other things:
[list]
[*] Being confident with ce_autocamera tools (static 3rd person cameras)
[*] Making sure you keep track of players who have gone behind or are hiding etc
[*] not "panic hopping" between cameras and being OK with letting the scene play out as is.
[*] getting on the camera of the team that's captured last/won the game before the point is capped/game is over. Just ensures that the victory music always plays and never the boos.
[*] not overly relying on cheatfeed if you use it
[/list]
There's a lot of minutiae for casting and other things I won't list for the sake of brevity.
2) Hardest part is just how random TF2 can be to spectate. sometimes on mids you'll be on one camera and the entire fight happens on someone else's and you catch nothing at all. It can be hard to know what camera to be on at all. KOTH is especially tricky. Otherwise every other issue is alleviated by proper planning and execution.
3) i produced a lot of ozfortress/fbtf games last year and earlier this year because i was so tired of grinding the game but i still wanted to be involved and saw it as a useful way of staying involved without having to do demo reviews of any sort. this stupid game still captivates me a decade on.
4) Sideshow, Bren are the most prominent examples. I don't think eXtine has had big opportunities for casting but I would imagine all the work he's put into TF2 over the years has bolstered his resume significantly and helped him get non-casting roles in esports. Wiethoofd gets paid to do EA NHL esport games. The skills you pick up from producing are immediately translatable to other aspects of esports/broadcasting as a whole, you just need to market it.
5) I think there's a big untapped market in Tiktok and Instagram for highlight reel/big play style videos. RGL has started doing something along those lines on tiktok but I think there's a lot of potential there. Generally I think the more comp TF2 content that isnt just frag videos/casts that is out there the better. If you build it etc
6) For TF2 yes, especially for smaller regions. It's understandable though, not everyone wants to invest the time it takes to learn all the small things about production, and even if you did want to, you need a beefy computer to run OBS/TF2/etc. The scene could always use more producers and could always use more commentators knowledgable about the game (or at least are good enough at playbyplay that they can get a high level analyst to fill in the gaps)
- What is the difference between a good and a great broadcaster?
- What is the hardest part about working production/broadcasting?
- What motivates you to create content and host events for TF2 and not any other game?
- Has being a caster / hosting LANs / making videos about TF2 ever helped anyone professionally get a job or give them opportunities in different esports?
- Do you think that there is a demand for more TF2 content?
- Is there a shortage of Broadcasters / Producers (In TF2 or concerning esports as a whole)[/quote]
I'll answer these with my own anecdotal experience from doing ozfortress stuff
1) imo it's both organization pre-cast and ability to coherently spectate during a game. pre-cast stuff is a multitude of things but the things I tried to focus on leading up to a cast was:
[list]
[*] picking out casters ahead of time based on division, their relative skill level, perceived/known cohesion with their co-caster. Last thing you want are two low-level casters casting a high level game. Or two people who both have playbyplay styles of commentary etc
[*] knowing at the beginning of the week what game you're interested in producing ahead of time and organizing ASAP
[*] having all your backend stuff setup an hour before show: twitch titles, scoreboard and other nodecg stuff etc
[*] getting casters in ~30min ahead of the match [i]just[/i] so you dont have to hunt them down
[/list]
Being organized and ready to go well ahead of time saves you a lot of pain.
In game you really want to be following the flow of the match and adjust your camera based on what the state of the game is. My general spectator theory is that you want your camera to be on the team on the offensive during the push - so if Blu is pushing Red 2nd, get on a Blu combo player. If the tide turns and blu is retreating get on a red camera etc. Helps keep the game exciting.
As well, there's a few other things:
[list]
[*] Being confident with ce_autocamera tools (static 3rd person cameras)
[*] Making sure you keep track of players who have gone behind or are hiding etc
[*] not "panic hopping" between cameras and being OK with letting the scene play out as is.
[*] getting on the camera of the team that's captured last/won the game before the point is capped/game is over. Just ensures that the victory music always plays and never the boos.
[*] not overly relying on cheatfeed if you use it
[/list]
There's a lot of minutiae for casting and other things I won't list for the sake of brevity.
2) Hardest part is just how random TF2 can be to spectate. sometimes on mids you'll be on one camera and the entire fight happens on someone else's and you catch nothing at all. It can be hard to know what camera to be on at all. KOTH is especially tricky. Otherwise every other issue is alleviated by proper planning and execution.
3) i produced a lot of ozfortress/fbtf games last year and earlier this year because i was so tired of grinding the game but i still wanted to be involved and saw it as a useful way of staying involved without having to do demo reviews of any sort. this stupid game still captivates me a decade on.
4) Sideshow, Bren are the most prominent examples. I don't think eXtine has had big opportunities for casting but I would imagine all the work he's put into TF2 over the years has bolstered his resume significantly and helped him get non-casting roles in esports. Wiethoofd gets paid to do EA NHL esport games. The skills you pick up from producing are immediately translatable to other aspects of esports/broadcasting as a whole, you just need to market it.
5) I think there's a big untapped market in Tiktok and Instagram for highlight reel/big play style videos. RGL has started doing something along those lines on tiktok but I think there's a lot of potential there. Generally I think the more comp TF2 content that isnt just frag videos/casts that is out there the better. If you build it etc
6) For TF2 yes, especially for smaller regions. It's understandable though, not everyone wants to invest the time it takes to learn all the small things about production, and even if you did want to, you need a beefy computer to run OBS/TF2/etc. The scene could always use more producers and could always use more commentators knowledgable about the game (or at least are good enough at playbyplay that they can get a high level analyst to fill in the gaps)
UBER_CAKE- Has being a caster / hosting LANs / making videos about TF2 ever helped anyone professionally get a job or give them opportunities in different esports?
Casting TF2 was largely the reason I got a job at Esports Engine (called NGE at the time) and have been there for 5 years now. At the time they were a startup esports production company of ~20 people and were planning on doing their own large NA Overwatch tournament series (Overwatch Winter Premiere) in which they wanted to hire a caster but also someone that could just generally work at the company full time after the event. Someone found me because of TF2 and figured the crossover to Overwatch was pretty natural.
After that OW event I mostly stepped away from casting and luckily the company was pretty great about letting people try new roles even if there wasn't a ton of experience doing that job previously. I moved to project management and oversaw small and large studio and live events for a few years like Fortnite Summer Skirmish LAN, Fortnite Fall Skirmish LAN, and Twitch Rivals, among others. I then got into the business side of the company for a year as a product designer, and then finally a broadcast producer, which is what I currently do.
If it weren't for my time in this game I wouldn't have gotten any of these opportunities, and for that I am eternally grateful. But also, it being right place right time was a huge part of it, as it is with most things, and the company's willingness to let people try new things and help them cultivate those skills.
[quote=UBER_CAKE]
- Has being a caster / hosting LANs / making videos about TF2 ever helped anyone professionally get a job or give them opportunities in different esports?
[/quote]
Casting TF2 was largely the reason I got a job at [url=https://esportsengine.gg/]Esports Engine[/url] (called NGE at the time) and have been there for 5 years now. At the time they were a startup esports production company of ~20 people and were planning on doing their own large NA Overwatch tournament series (Overwatch Winter Premiere) in which they wanted to hire a caster but also someone that could just generally work at the company full time after the event. Someone found me because of TF2 and figured the crossover to Overwatch was pretty natural.
After that OW event I mostly stepped away from casting and luckily the company was pretty great about letting people try new roles even if there wasn't a ton of experience doing that job previously. I moved to project management and oversaw small and large studio and live events for a few years like Fortnite Summer Skirmish LAN, Fortnite Fall Skirmish LAN, and Twitch Rivals, among others. I then got into the business side of the company for a year as a product designer, and then finally a broadcast producer, which is what I currently do.
If it weren't for my time in this game I wouldn't have gotten any of these opportunities, and for that I am eternally grateful. But also, it being right place right time was a huge part of it, as it is with most things, and the company's willingness to let people try new things and help them cultivate those skills.
- Has being a caster / hosting LANs / making videos about TF2 ever helped anyone professionally get a job or give them opportunities in different esports?
[/quote]
Casting TF2 was largely the reason I got a job at [url=https://esportsengine.gg/]Esports Engine[/url] (called NGE at the time) and have been there for 5 years now. At the time they were a startup esports production company of ~20 people and were planning on doing their own large NA Overwatch tournament series (Overwatch Winter Premiere) in which they wanted to hire a caster but also someone that could just generally work at the company full time after the event. Someone found me because of TF2 and figured the crossover to Overwatch was pretty natural.
After that OW event I mostly stepped away from casting and luckily the company was pretty great about letting people try new roles even if there wasn't a ton of experience doing that job previously. I moved to project management and oversaw small and large studio and live events for a few years like Fortnite Summer Skirmish LAN, Fortnite Fall Skirmish LAN, and Twitch Rivals, among others. I then got into the business side of the company for a year as a product designer, and then finally a broadcast producer, which is what I currently do.
If it weren't for my time in this game I wouldn't have gotten any of these opportunities, and for that I am eternally grateful. But also, it being right place right time was a huge part of it, as it is with most things, and the company's willingness to let people try new things and help them cultivate those skills.
Bumping this to say I am planning on doing an observer's workshop livestream over on my Twitch this Friday @5PM eastern!
The stream will mostly be oriented towards basic observing guidelines in TF2, getting basic observing tools set up and working, and reviewing a few matches and trying to break down what does and doesn't work for those broadcasts. I will also be responding to chat and giving answers to questions over the course of the stream. Hoping to share this and more with you soon!
Bumping this to say I am planning on doing an observer's workshop livestream over on my [url=https://twitch.tv/consolee_]Twitch this Friday @5PM eastern! [/url]
The stream will mostly be oriented towards basic observing guidelines in TF2, getting basic observing tools set up and working, and reviewing a few matches and trying to break down what does and doesn't work for those broadcasts. I will also be responding to chat and giving answers to questions over the course of the stream. Hoping to share this and more with you soon!
The stream will mostly be oriented towards basic observing guidelines in TF2, getting basic observing tools set up and working, and reviewing a few matches and trying to break down what does and doesn't work for those broadcasts. I will also be responding to chat and giving answers to questions over the course of the stream. Hoping to share this and more with you soon!
Got pushed back a day, but will be starting my workshop in just a few minutes! come join me live at twitch.tv/consolee_!
Got pushed back a day, but will be starting my workshop in just a few minutes! come join me live at [url=https://twitch.tv/consolee_]twitch.tv/consolee_![/url]
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1125451138
Here's the VOD for anyone that's interested; will eventually be highlighting this and keeping relevant download links to resources in the description for people to access in the future, as well as throwing it up on YouTube. Thanks to everyone that tuned in, hoping to do more like this in the future!
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1125451138
Here's the VOD for anyone that's interested; will eventually be highlighting this and keeping relevant download links to resources in the description for people to access in the future, as well as throwing it up on YouTube. Thanks to everyone that tuned in, hoping to do more like this in the future!
Here's the VOD for anyone that's interested; will eventually be highlighting this and keeping relevant download links to resources in the description for people to access in the future, as well as throwing it up on YouTube. Thanks to everyone that tuned in, hoping to do more like this in the future!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mh5NnYh86JU
Also have the full workshop uploaded to YouTube now. Next Friday at 5PM Eastern I'm hoping to do another workshop where I VOD review some of my early observing work from ESEA Seasons 26 and 27, and try to point out some common mistakes made by novice observers in TF2.
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mh5NnYh86JU[/youtube]
Also have the full workshop uploaded to YouTube now. Next Friday at 5PM Eastern I'm hoping to do another workshop where I VOD review some of my early observing work from ESEA Seasons 26 and 27, and try to point out some common mistakes made by novice observers in TF2.
Also have the full workshop uploaded to YouTube now. Next Friday at 5PM Eastern I'm hoping to do another workshop where I VOD review some of my early observing work from ESEA Seasons 26 and 27, and try to point out some common mistakes made by novice observers in TF2.
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