Putting On a Show
Posted on Aug 7, 2024 by FEED Staff
Joe Duckhouse of Confetti Media Group reveals how the esports broadcasters of tomorrow are trained, with vital support from CVP
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This year, educator and 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 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.
“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, 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.
“We’ve worked with CVP for as long as I can remember, and there are some huge benefits. They have a lovely showroom in Fitzrovia, London, where you can try all the kit you could possibly want. They also have a huge stock and can get it to you incredibly fast. Their experts always find the solutions we need.”
Even with everything in place, executing a broadcast is no easy feat. The live esports environment doesn’t make for effortless recording.
“You need it to look spectacular for the online audience – which will be huge – but you also have an in-room audience and need to wow them with a live show,” Duckhouse remarks. “It’s like cramming everything from a Super Bowl event into a small arena. It’s very easy to make the room look incredible with plenty of brightness, contrast and dynamics – but that often doesn’t look best on camera. What you need is a much lower LED volume output and careful balancing of lights. The requirements of camera systems and lenses are key there.”
But far more goes on at Confetti than in a standard studio. While its students are exposed to the variety of industry-standard kit in a controlled space, they also work frequently on live, paid broadcasts. Again, the role of trusted partners like CVP proves invaluable here.
“The whole point of our esports broadcasting programme is to remove as many barriers as we can between the students and their chosen job market. Our product, if you boil it down, is engineers; that’s what we produce. In addition to the skills we teach, vendors we work with directly – such as CVP – are incredibly important,” Duckhouse enthuses.
“Just this week, CVP is hosting an esports conference in London. Many of our students are working there right alongside the experts, being exposed to its other customers. That’s exactly where we want to get them.
“As well as opening up that talent stream, we can look to partners like CVP to shape what we teach. We always ask: ‘If you hired a Confetti graduate, what would you need to teach them first? What are they missing’? Then, we update the course content. We’re grateful for that insight.
“Every graduate of our programme is in employment,” Duckhouse says. “Many of them are actually employed before they finish – in the esports industry or wider broadcast. That’s an amazing figure.”
This feature was first published in the Summer 2024 issue of FEED.
