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Love this blog, Love the KW.
Match made in ESPORTS.
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United States7481 Posts
watched it last night, excellent as always. You didn't mention this but they have been toying a lot with how they display map stats, and i really really like the latest iteration.
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There are two non-gaming aspects about the Korean Weekly that I really admire.
By supplementing their limited budget with superhuman amount of free labor, ESV consistently put up a great show. Diamond has been known to say he put in a hundred hour weeks for eSports. That aint too far-fetched, considering the amount of communication and administrative work needed to for something of this magnitude. The other main figures in ESV probably put in significant amount of personal time too. This level of dedication from a volunteer staff is rare, even among eSports.
Just as importantly, ESV doesn't overspent. Their prize pool runs off what they make, and only recently they start tapping into sponsorship dollars. Having put in quite a bit of personal time in projects before, I know fully well how tempting and easy it is to put personal money in try to "blow it up." That faucet always dries up, and worse yet, it will force you to making decisions you won't otherwise, for short term interests. This kind of fiscal discipline take balls.
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Thanks a lot for all the advice! Definitely keeping a lot of this in mind so I can improve ESV's production in the coming months. I'm looking forward to seeing more of these reviews.
watched it last night, excellent as always. You didn't mention this but they have been toying a lot with how they display map stats, and i really really like the latest iteration.
Thank you! We had been pretty indecisive about the way we wanted to display the map stats properly, I think we'll be sticking to what we have now.
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Canada1637 Posts
Awesome, I'm of course relatively new to the Korean Weekly, and so this is so perfect you did this, because I was kind of experimenting with changing camera angles. I really had a hard time, basically I have a 24 inch monitor, so its like, I can either have the camera on top of the monitor, and then angled down but centered on me, or I can have the webcam on the left or right side of my monitor, but at eye level, however offset (I think I also just need to get better at straight up looking at the camera as well between games). Think I've done some more adjustments that should look even better  .
Also trying to experiment a little bit more with changing lighting a little bit, definitely an interesting challenge turning my bedroom into a "studio" @_@, think I've got some more adjustments too that will be better.
Keep up the good work boss!
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Thanks for all the advice. The background thing is one. In all my video interviews I make sure and clean my desk so it looks good, even though it's always a wreck when I'm not on camera!
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Denmark6097 Posts
Amazing episode as always!
On February 02 2012 05:49 StereoDVT wrote:Show nested quote +watched it last night, excellent as always. You didn't mention this but they have been toying a lot with how they display map stats, and i really really like the latest iteration. Thank you! We had been pretty indecisive about the way we wanted to display the map stats properly, I think we'll be sticking to what we have now.
I really like the latest iteration as well. But one thing, i dint notice the map stats(The numbers) Till i actully saw this episode. They are rather hard to see due to the fact the numbers only have a black border
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I'm curious Jason, and have a question for people who don't want to or can't shell out money for good lighting, backgrounds, or whatnot. In terms of lighting, would a flexible table lamp be adequate in terms of lighting the casters better (angled of course at their faces)? I don't know if the color or temp would mess with the overall shot, but I figured I'd ask. Also, what might you suggest for people who might want to experiment with a background of some type? Again, great insights as always!
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On February 02 2012 05:53 Adebisi wrote:
I can either have the camera on top of the monitor, and then angled down but centered on me, or I can have the webcam on the left or right side of my monitor, but at eye level, however offset (I think I also just need to get better at straight up looking at the camera as well between games).
I liked the offset look. Yeah, you need to look at the camera in between games which, at first will seem weird as you will not be looking at Orb but it will look great.
Optionally, what if you put the camera on the opposite side, camera left, doing that would keep the same basic shot but be able to glance at the monitor more. Look at djWheat's setup on LiveOnThree. I guess it all depends what you have on the walls behind you. If there is anything I might be able to do let me know. Would love to help any way I can.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/9i7W8.png)
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I really like the latest iteration as well. But one thing, i dint notice the map stats(The numbers) Till i actully saw this episode. They are rather hard to see due to the fact the numbers only have a black border
Thanks for pointing that out, I've heard the same from a couple other people, and definitely plan to change that to make the numbers a little easier to see.
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On February 02 2012 06:07 wo1fwood wrote:
I'm curious Jason, and have a question for people who don't want to or can't shell out money for good lighting, backgrounds, or whatnot. In terms of lighting, would a flexible table lamp be adequate in terms of lighting the casters better (angled of course at their faces)? I don't know if the color or temp would mess with the overall shot, but I figured I'd ask. Also, what might you suggest for people who might want to experiment with a background of some type? Again, great insights as always!
great questions:
Lighting is very cheap and easy. I use a clip on desk lamp that I got at Ikea fitted with a natural white lightbulb I got from homedepot. For home use on a webcam there is zero reason to buy a fancy light. OK, well, not zero. Having a light that is dimmable is infinitely helpful. I clip my lamp over my desk and point it at the white wall - my desk is against a wall. The 'bounce' of the light is just enough to light my face without blowing out the image. If you point the light right at you be sure you are not washing out (white blur) the image.
Backgrounds:
I think there are some really cool things you can do with printed and mounted images. Find a super high rez image that is landscape (16 ) and get it printed at Kinkos. This can be tricky to pull off if you are like me have have an open space behind you but if you are in a corner you can just pust very purposeful images on the walls. Look at Day9 or JP McDanials for great, clean, well done 'sets'.
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Canada1637 Posts
Nice, more good info, I'll experiment a bit more and definitely PM you if there's something specific.
I did have one more question though actually off the topic of lighting, in regards to the webcam. I'm using a Microsoft LifeCam, (the one Day9 uses, or at least the same line) and its got a bunch of features of varying utility of course, one of which being autofocus, its good in that it will focus pretty quickly, but I do notice sometimes that when I'm not even really moving it will kinda blur, and then refocus, I was just wondering if I might be better off just turning off autofocus finding a good point of focus, setting it to that, and basically doing that instead of leaving autofocus on. There's also an auto feature for white balance, basically, should I try to fiddle and adjust these settings to get the optimal video based on me having a consistent "set", or should I just let the webcam do its thing?
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I don't have any great insight about KW production, it's just an amazing tourney that I nearly never missed despite it starting at midnight EU time.
I like the overall production, if I had a complain it would be that there is too much downtime between games (especially when it's 3AM, I guess it's less an issue for other timezones tho). And I'm not talking about ads, I'm always glad to see ads on streams, makes me feel like I'm helping ^^ It's especially true in between games of the same match. Orb analysis is amazing, but sometimes too long.
My solution would be to keep the talk, but launch the next game in the middle of the talk (without saying the usual "and here is our next game, blabla", just send the game but don't say anything about the fact that you're launching the game, not sure if I'm clear), and introducing the game after the talk.
I haven't seen any organization do that, and I think it would be very dynamic and look pretty good production-wise.
Instead of talking on a fixed screen, just send the next game, the the 2 or 3 first minutes don't have to be casted anyway. Then when you have finished your previous game analysis, introduce the players as usual and go on.
edit : and after writing this I realize that this is a thread about KW, but that my post is totally OT ><
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On February 02 2012 06:49 Adebisi wrote:
I did have one more question though actually off the topic of lighting, in regards to the webcam. I'm using a Microsoft LifeCam, (the one Day9 uses, or at least the same line) and its got a bunch of features of varying utility of course, one of which being autofocus, its good in that it will focus pretty quickly, but I do notice sometimes that when I'm not even really moving it will kinda blur, and then refocus, I was just wondering if I might be better off just turning off autofocus finding a good point of focus, setting it to that, and basically doing that instead of leaving autofocus on.
I have the Logitech C910 and have similar issues. I'd certainly play with it and see. If there is an 'infinite' setting see if you can set that and check to see if the image is soft. I will also try this out with mine and report back. Webcams sure are finicky little bastards.
On February 02 2012 06:49 Adebisi wrote:
There's also an auto feature for white balance, basically, should I try to fiddle and adjust these settings to get the optimal video based on me having a consistent "set", or should I just let the webcam do its thing?
Only time you should set your white balance manually is if you are using Tungsten lights (standard lightbulbs that, when turned on, give off an orange-ish light) and you have a lot of sun light (natural white light) coming into the room. If that is the case then set it to white balance for Tungsten which will make that orange light 'white' and the sunlight appear slightly blue.
I use a natural white light bulb for facelight and normal tungsten lighting for my overhead lights. Since the facelight is dominating the screen the camera will auto correct to white balance to the 'sunlight' setting. I'd only play with this is you are going for an effect.
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fuck yeah! love your blogs. probably my favorite out of all of them. loading er up now! thx! Also, this should be spotlighted, your a genius!
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I love watching your show. It is so captivating and informative. Keep it up!
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Thanks so much for the kind words and advice sir!
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checkint it out, orbtl is amazing
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![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/5EGG2.jpg)
Adebisi, I love you.
Love the new camera setup. Solid lighting, great use of the book shelf, nice clean set, topical posters in the background and...gin. Well done, my friend, well done.
BTW my camera did have a setting to allow for autofocus to be turned off and that seemed to work very nicely for me.
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EPT
