Background

I first started shoutcasting in 2002 and purely by accident. I won’t bore you with the explicit details, but suffice to say I had never heard of shoutcasting before and had no idea where to start or what to do technically. I was asked by a ClanBase admin (Yashvin or Yashman) to cover an Unreal Tournament CTF match, which didn’t seem that hard as it was the game I played at the time at a decent level and I knew all the top players and clans. I managed to get help from a friendly chap called Ginga_Ninja on IRC who set me up properly with the sound card and the software and pointed me in the right direction of a web tutorial. I then borrowed a server to use and off I went, on a brave new journey that I had no idea would end up where it has today.

After a few months of shoutcasting and loving it, CB radio asked if I would like to be part of their little broadcast team and as I was only really covering their leagues and cup anyway, it seemed appropriate. From there, I did many more of the online cups and was then approached by a couple of the bigger casting stations. By now I had started to get a little more serious about it, where as before, it had been a hobby and something I loved doing in the evening and in my spare time. I had reached a level where I was reasonably well known on the UT scene and had a nice following whenever I went on-air. I have to admit though, I still had no vision of me doing this as my full time job or even earning money from it, so the next step didn’t seem that obvious to me, but I realised I had quickly outgrown the CB Radio team and wanted to cover a wider range of games and leagues in any case.

In early 2005 I joined iTG thanks to Marcus “djWHEAT” Graham recruiting me as part of their drive to increase their European casting talent. I joined at a time of recent change for the whole team, where they had split away from TSN and what I found was a set of people who were eager to impress, pleased to help me and pass on their own experiences and take me to the next level. I was lucky in many ways to work with some of the very best in the business and in TosspoT I found not only someone who was learning at the same time as me, but a true friend and a fellow brit in what was a very American dominated industry.

I continued with audio casting when I joined iTG, but quickly got in to video casting at ESWC Finals and at Quakecon, which was a totally different experience from audio commentary for online matches.  Firstly, there were cameras and I had no idea how to react on camera or even where to look. I realised I needed help and enrolled in a local college course for a couple of evenings a week, which helped me understand the importance of voice projection, where to look on camera and how to use all of the tools around me in order to present better on the video streams. I was lucky enough to work on many of the top tournaments around the world, but whilst most of our expenses were covered, we rarely returned home with more money than we started with. Things started to change in 2006 when both TosspoT and I started to get other work in the form of voice-overs for commercials and movies and had a chance to work on several segments for TV. We were also given a 6 part series to film for UK TV, which whilst the production was pretty poor, did give us an insight to the workings of TV and allowed us to learn and make mistakes in a very low key environment.

In 2007, I formed a new company, having left iTG in late 2006, which is where I am now. I have also been a presenter of a TV show in Australia as well as commentator for play-by-play and recently of course worked on live national TV for DirecTV and CGS in America and recording some commentary for xleague.tv in the UK. I sat as a pundit on the Draft show for CGS live from the Playboy Mansion and also appeared on a chat show about gaming in the UK. I have also presented a number of events from stage, including the Multiplay I-Series lans which have seen me work with Girls Aloud and many other notables. I have also commentated alongside Chris Kamara and John Desborough during TV shows for Sky One in the UK. I was also used as the presenter of a rock concert in 2006 and 2007 for Ubisoft.

2007 ended with me leading the commentary team for CGS on live TV across the USA and going out to a combined household figure of 350 million people globally during the World Finals.

It has been an incredible journey from those early days of getting drunk with tequila and flaming the player’s on-air from my home office!