PUTTING ON A SHOW Joe Duckhouse of Confetti Media Group reveals how the esports broadcasters of tomorrow are trained, with vital support from CVP
T his year, educator and gameplay was widely shared outside of arcades and homes. Through the decades, however, it has remained at the cutting edge of broadcast, now training aspiring broadcasters with an esports specialism as a subsidiary of Nottingham Trent University. “We’re looking at what courses, technology within courses and skills students are going to need in three or five years’ time, when they are entering the job market,” explains chief technical officer Joe Duckhouse. broadcast savant Confetti Media Group is celebrating its 30th anniversary. The business was founded the same year Namco released Tekken – long before the excitement of high-octane
“When it came to our esports broadcasting programme, it quickly became evident that this was an interesting set of skills with ample application across the creative industries. Esports broadcasting shares much with traditional sports, but it demanded a whole level of remote workflow and IP innovation, which wasn’t the norm in other traditional broadcast industries.” As a commercial vendor and educator, Confetti operates a fully functional studio – equipped with a players’ arena, audience seating, an XR-capable LED array and various broadcast tech. Much of the studio’s camera and lensing gear is reliably supplied by long-time partner CVP. “We’ll have up to five cameras in the studio picking up audience shots,
EYES ON THE PRIZE
Executing a live esports event demands balancing the needs of both online and in- room audiences
the players themselves and the host as they’re introducing the event,” Duckhouse adds. “Most are on robotic platforms, peds or stabilised support. Then, there’s an individual camera for each player, as well as a commentary team in a different studio with their own cameras. All those inputs are feeding into the vision mixer. It takes a lot of digital glue behind the scenes to hold it together.
IT’S LIKE CRAMMING EVERYTHING FROM A SUPER BOWL EVENT INTO A SMALL ARENA
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