The First Cast From Home

So you have your software and hardware set up nicely, its time to find a match to commentate on. First of all, stick to what you know and find a match from the game you play and know best. Ideally pick a low key match and not one from the upper echelons of the tournaments such as EuroCup matches or Nations Cups. That way, you won’t be berated for making mistakes or given a hard time if someone doesn’t like your voice first time out. You should also find the clans friendly and receptive to the idea of you covering their game as its unlikely they have had the pleasure or honour in the past and who doesn’t want to be on radio or TV?

Make sure when you decide which match you are going to cover, that you collect as much information as possible about the tournament, its structure, who’s doing well and who’s not and also ensure that you know the two teams well enough to describe them in one sentence. Check on their history, their previous results, the team’s website and of course all of the players. Go and chat to the clan leaders before the match (preferably a few hours before) and get a few questions ready for a short interview with them on the match ahead. This will all help you if the game falls a bit flat and you are left wondering what to talk about. Remember, preparation is the key to a great shoutcast regardless of the match outcome. If you get a one sided game and it’s a blow-out, that’s when your preparation becomes important to maintain the interest in the program. On a great game, it’s likely you wont need 80% of your preparation, but don’t get in to the bad habit of thinking “I won’t need it”, because one day you seriously will.

Whilst it should go without saying, be professional whilst you are on-air. I have heard a lot of budding casters do a great job in the past only to let themselves down by swearing ferociously during the game and whilst I am not against the odd swear word used in the right way or place, I generally avoid swearing on-air during a match. Many of my old casts would include a lot of swearing, so you may ask why I would advise against it now and the answer is simple: Do you ever hear a sports commentator swear when covering a sport on TV? Rarely, if ever. It’s not big and its certainly not clever.

Being professional is one thing, but it doesn’t mean you cant have fun, its all about the fun, especially on radio over the internet where regulations are not quite as heavy handed as those for live TV productions, so go ahead, let your hair down and have some fun with the game and the players, but remember to remain respectful of the players and the teams competing, after all, its an important match to them, even if you don’t think so. Likewise, interact with the people tuning in via IRC or other message systems, wherever your listeners are (web cam chat for example). It probably doesn’t mean your cast would be bad if you didn’t, but it really adds to the value of the commentary when you can include people’s names from a chat window and they love nothing more than to hear their name mentioned. Got an opinion on something? Share it with your audience and encourage them to debate it in between the games, it really does help the quality of the cast for everyone, including you. Don’t be afraid of being controversial, but avoid being controversial for the sake of it, you will soon get found out as a fraud.

Often you will get critique from people, either during or after the cast and frankly, this is natural. If you don’t have the thickest skin and don’t take kindly to harsh critique, then this is probably not the job for you, however there are things you can do to avoid or at least lessen the dent to your confidence, especially in the early days. You may find people say things like “oh my god, your crap compared to <insert famous commentators name here>”. Comparison is understandable, especially if you cover a game that has had one particular caster attached to it for a long period of time. Think djWHEAT for Quake for example or TosspoT in Enemy Territory. They have a huge following and naturally anyone dropping in on their “domain” gets a grilling first time out, regardless if they are actually any good or not. Try to be selective about what you take on board. Read past the fan boy comments (good and bad) and look for those which offer advice from respected community members or other casters. You could even ignore forums and news comments for a while until you are comfortable in the scene you commentate in. You can’t run or hide forever, but those early few weeks can be very harsh on you unless you take some form of preventative measure to block some of the rubbish out.

I could spend an age analysing why this occurs, but that’s not really important right now to you the budding shoutcaster. All you need to remember is why you started doing this in the first place. Eventually through numerous casts, you will improve and grow to have your own fan base of people who enjoy what you do for them or at the very least respect the time and effort you put in.