Casting Mechanics for Amateur Casters

Several things stick out to me when I'm watching videos of amateur casters.

Watching as a Player

A large majority of amateur casters end up watching the replay as if they were watching a replay. Sure, it may as well be a replay, but it's from the player's perspective. When I say player, I mean that the caster is watching it to learn timings or plan out strategies.

For a player, it's perfectly reasonable to watch a replay to learn how a professional player does things differently. But as a caster, it's your job to make sure you can explain the game, rather than just watching it like another audience member. This is because as the audience, you do not get any of the feelings or emotions that come from the tension that builds between the two players. And your job as a caster is to express that tension.

If I wanted to watch a replay, I'd watch a replay without someone's comments. When I watch a cast, I want to feel the flow of the game, something that can show me why the decisions are so important and why the choices the players makes are important.

Mouse(Camera) Control

Middle Mouse gives you Drag Scroll powers! Use the middle mouse to traverse short map distances smoothly. If it's further than 2 screen's length away, just click to it on the minimap. Makes for a lot more enjoyable viewing experience for your audience.

Finish your thoughts!

When first starting out casting, you may get overwhelmed by all of the things that are happening. No one expects you to be able to catch everything that flies by like Husky, so there's absolutely no pressure to try and describe everything that happens. Unfortunately, a lot of amateur casters will trip up on their words or start a completely new thought without finishing the prior one.

Don't feel pressured to catch everything. It's like splitting Marines against Banelings, it's something you'll get better at with time. At the very least be sure to complete your thoughts, so the audience isn't lead on through multiple unfinished sentences.

Calling the game/gg/strategy

Do not call the 'gg' before the players do. They determine when a game is over, not the caster.

Do not pin a player to a strategy. It's not a contest to try and show off your prediction powers. It's okay to explain what options are available, but you're not improving anyone by saying, "The Terran is getting 2 gas, so he's definitely going for Thors". If you're wrong, it makes you look like an idiot, and if you're right, all you've really done is stroke your own ego.

This is totally fine as a player, because you can understand what's going on, but it's not that clear for audience. And, as a caster, your job is to cater your commentary to the audience.

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I don't want to change the world, I just want to show that it's possible.

FlaShFTW United States. July 05 2012 07:00. Posts 4957

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i disagree with the predictions. you can predict. if you're wrong, doesn't make you look like an idiot. it just means that the player when for something you didn't know or didn't expect. I make predictions all the time in my BW casts (one time i made a horrible prediction when i didn't see an armory and thought vessels and not valks). It doesn't matter if you are wrong. As long as you just do a good just analyzing the game, which predictions can be.

Never Surrender. Never GG. Always Fighting. BW4LYF. Woo Jung Ho Never Forget.

docvoc United States. July 05 2012 08:42. Posts 3447

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On July 05 2012 07:00 FlaShFTW wrote:
i disagree with the predictions. you can predict. if you're wrong, doesn't make you look like an idiot. it just means that the player when for something you didn't know or didn't expect. I make predictions all the time in my BW casts (one time i made a horrible prediction when i didn't see an armory and thought vessels and not valks). It doesn't matter if you are wrong. As long as you just do a good just analyzing the game, which predictions can be.

I tend to agree with this kind of thinking. Its good to make predictions for us viewers because they lead us into a way of thinking about a certain build rather than just having a shot in the dark about it. Its good that casters explain where a player can go from a build and if its very VERY obvious/understood what build the player is going there is no reason not to say it. The point of the caster imho is to be very obvious, to be captain-fucking-obvious when it comes to what he says, its the basic if X-> then Y, statement and though its simplistic I find that casters that do that and then give some extra insight at best really enhance my experience and at worst do not detract from the game.

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