In less than 24 hours, more than 20 broadcast partners will be booting up to deliver the Knockout Stage of the 2018 Mid-Season Invitational from the Zenith Arena in Paris, France. I’m Arthur “theMay0r” Chandra and I’m a part of the Broadcast team for NA LCS and international events. I’m here to talk about what the broadcast producers do and explain how we produce the Knockout Stage from pre-show to post-show.

WHAT DO BROADCAST PRODUCERS DO?

As mentioned in Anatomy of a Pause, broadcast producers are the ones responsible for the on-air presentation of the games. I mainly focus on connecting people so everyone knows what we’re planning for the stream (segments, story points, etc), while making sure the broadcast team is ready to execute on it. I communicate the show flow (and any changes) to the people in the control room (directors, graphics, cameras, technical producers, writers, stats, etc) and on-air team (shoutcasters, hosts, and interviewers). Based on the show flow, they will deliver what’s needed for their part of the stream (replays, gameplay footage, player interviews, stat graphics, scripts, etc) to convey the story of the upcoming games and ensure viewers can easily follow the action. Similar to a shotcaller, producers will make the final call on what makes it on-air as a last check to ensure all broadcast elements deepen our narratives, maintain the fluidity of the show, and add value to the viewing experience.

Outside of the broadcast team, I’ll brief event staff to make sure they know what the broadcast is planning, especially with marquee moments like ceremonies. We make sure various creators at the event (media, photography, social media, features, etc) have all the information they need to produce their content without interfering with the viewing experience (no walking in front of or blocking camera ops). We work with Player Management to make sure the pros know where to be, run through the show schedule, rehearse choreography, and make sure they’re prepared for these moments before they play.

During international events like MSI or Worlds, we work with broadcast producers from around the world to create a globally consistent, but locally resonant broadcast. During the splits, we work on our local esports leagues, but when international events happen, we come together as one production team. In collaboration with global producers, we get varied perspectives to improve our storytelling, pilot new segments (successful segments in other regions, new graphics, etc), and continue to level up our international event broadcast.

Now that you know a broadcast producer is basically the go-between for the entire thing, I’ll walk you through how we produce the Knockout Stage from pre-show to post-show.

PRE-SHOW: BEFORE THE KNOCKOUT STAGE

From LA to Paris

Before I share some of the steps that we took to get ready for the Knockout Stage, I want to explain how and why we use a remote production for our Pan-English broadcast feed. For a lot of our international shows, we control the English stream remote. When we settled into our current NA LCS studio in Los Angeles, we wanted to ensure we had a robust control room capable of supporting international events – especially for venues that may not have the capabilities to host multiple broadcast control rooms on-site. With more than 20 streams broadcasting the Knockout Stage, our English feed camera operators and on-air team will be in the Zenith Arena in Paris, but our control room crew (producers, directors, graphics, etc) will be calling the shots from Los Angeles, CA.

Testing…1…2…3….

Now that you understand how we’re splitting up our broadcast team for the Knockout Stage, let’s travel back to a couple of days ago on how we started getting ready for Semis. On the final days of Groups, we sent a small crew to Paris to begin setting up the Zenith Arena. A few days ago, we tested our broadcast feed along with other remote control rooms to ensure its running smoothly and resolved any potential issues that could impact the viewing experience before the Knockout Stage begins.

Syncing streams to in-venue

With any roadshow or event, the in-venue experience will be in the local language of the area. You may have heard other languages in the background of previous international events and for the upcoming Knockout Stage, you’ll hear some French in the background of the English feed. We have a small crew on-site in the Zenith Arena to coordinate with O’Gaming, the in-house production team, to make sure we’re aligned on the flow of the show. We want to make sure all our broadcasts line up so the casters can smoothly narrate in-venue moments (commercial breaks, opening ceremony, going into champ select, etc) without awkward gaps. We also host our final sync with the Opening Ceremony staff to make sure we’re informed of the latest changes and ensure our local casters are prepared to narrate it.

36 hours and counting

Three days before the Knockout Stage, we find out the four teams that will advance from the Group Stage to Semifinals. In this case, RNG selected FNC as their opponents for the first series on May 18 which meant KZ and FW is be the second series on May 19. In preparation for our Semifinals’ Story Meeting, we rewatch games, review Group Stage performances to identify win conditions for the teams, and discuss marquee moments of the teams during the tournament.

Setting the stories

Two days before Knockout Stage begins, we host our Story Meeting with the on-air team, producers, stats coordinators, writers, graphics team, and live editors where we get aligned on the key points to present on air about the upcoming semifinal matchups.

Story meetings are one of my favorite parts of my job because casters, analysts, and crew all come together to form the storyline for the upcoming games. We all watch League games through different lenses (craft, main role in League, regional expertise, etc) and we combine those unique perspectives to craft our storylines. We tend to be more outlandish or speculative in story meetings so we can test the waters with each other, see if we’re aligned, debate ideas, and determine what’s the most important to share on-air with our fans.

Producers lead story meetings to make sure we don’t linger on one topic for too long and make sure we’re all prepared to execute on the upcoming games, such as creating graphics, writing scripts, pulling stats, planning the flow of the show, etc.  

“Scripted”

The day before Semis, we start with Readthrough, where our on air talent read the script for the first time with our writer and broadcast producers. We review the script to ensure it aligns with the current vision of the show and hits all the key beats identified in the Story Meeting.

Before we head to rehearsals, I wanted to talk about our script. Unlike a traditional script you might see for a TV Show, Play, or Movie, our script is more of an outline or cheat sheet of the show flow. In a live show, the script needs to flexible enough for us to react to the most important moments from the games, but also provide a solid framework to ensure we contextualize those moments in the wider narrative of the teams, players, and tournament. Our script does not contain match winners (RIP).  

Practice makes perfect

After Readthrough, we rehearse the top of show (first segment) for camera operators and directors to make sure that all the needed elements like video b-roll, graphics, gameplay highlights, etc. are ready. We also review blocking (where everyone needs to be) for speciality segments like cold opens to start the show, monologues, and stage interviews. During rehearsal, I check in with the directorial team to see if they have any concerns around how the show looks and feels. Rehearsals are an integral part of making sure that we’re prepared to deliver a premium experience for our pros and fans. It’s the final chance to make any big tweaks or changes before games begin the next day.

We also review our ceremonies and key moments (opening of the show, player introductions, champion select, win moments, etc) with the pros and stand-ins to make sure everything and everyone is ready for Semifinals.

SHOW DAYS: DURING THE KNOCKOUT STAGE

Now that we’ve covered what happens before the show begins, let’s teleport into the future and I’ll share a sneak peek about what happens during the broadcast during the Knockout Stage.

Day 1 – Semifinals

In the morning, we’ll do a final round of rehearsal and checks to make sure everything is ready for our first show day in the Zenith Arena. We only have a couple of hours to make any final adjustments with lighting, graphics, footage, etc.

After rehearsal, everyone gets ready in their own way for the show. For example, on-air talent go to wardrobe and make-up. Broadcast producers usually will do one more readthrough of the rundown and check in with the crew to make sure any changes made in rehearsal are communicated to the team and complete before we go live.

Before the broadcast begins, we do the final check in with all the on-air talent over comms before the stream turns on. It’s a final way to shake out any nerves and make sure we’re ready to go live. It can be a quick GLHF, inside jokes or light trolling, recaps of what’s to come or reminding them of changes from rehearsal, answering any final questions, etc. The live element of my job is my favorite part and I still get excited when I hear the countdown until we go live from the director inside the control room, and chants by the crowd. At my heart, I’m a fan and League player too so I’m so excited to watch the games and be a part of sharing our pro player stories with all the fans.

Day 2 – Semifinals

For second day of Semis, we’ll mainly repeat the same gameday process outlined above. The main difference is that at the end of the Day 2, we’ll do a story meeting for Finals. We can’t start developing the final stories or get started writing the script until we know the advancing teams and what happened during Semis. At this point we have about 12 hours to prepare all our broadcast materials (scripts, graphics, interviews, b-roll, etc) for Finals the next day. We also need to prepare materials for our 30 minute MSI pre-show before Finals. It’s a tight turn around but we want to make sure the most timely and accurate storylines are reflected as we recount the journey of these teams to Finals.

Day 3 – Finals

It’s the last day of the Knockout Stage, the broadcast team will have worked 13 shows in 17 days, but we’ll still be eager to conquer our 14th and final show day. It’s a hugely collaborative effort to deliver everything we need to crown our next MSI champion and we’re excited to see what new team will join our past champions, EDward Gaming and SK Telecom T1. On top of another round of read throughs, final checks, and ceremony rehearsals, we will also have our pre-show that will transition into the opening ceremony.

POST-SHOW: GGWP MSI 2018

At the end of MSI 2018, we’ll celebrate the conclusion and hard work put into the 14 show days. At this point, I’ll say goodbye to the international crew and on-air team that came together to form our MSI 2018 broadcast team. I’ll work with some of them on Rift Rivals in July but for many, I won’t see them in the control room again until Worlds 2018. These international events bring us all together with the common goal of delivering a world-class broadcast for our fans. We walk away from these events with learnings, best practices, and new perspectives that we can bring back to our local Leagues so we can continue to evolve our broadcast to deliver an experience worthy of our passionate fans and pros.

Arthur “theMay0r” Chandra is a Broadcast Producer for the NA LCS and international events. He’s a Bot Lane main who is currently learning how to play Kai’sa. While away from the office he loves spending time cooking for his friends and snowboarding. If you have broadcast feedback or questions, reach out to him on Twitter (@ArthurChandra) or you may see him in the Production Trash Talk and Appreciation Threads (yes, our producers read them all).