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Hey everyone, I’m Ron a producer for IPL and I directed the main SC2 stage at IPL4. This blog is geared towards production/behind the scenes aspect of the event.
Overall I’m happy with IPL4 and how our team was able to come together and put on an event like this.
Working with the GOM production staff was amazing. GOM produces events like this 5+ nights a week in Korea and that experience shows. We worked closely with Mr. Chae, Mr An, Mr Oh and Jae in the weeks leading up to the event. Despite sounding like characters from Reservoir Dogs these guys were professionals and a pleasure to work with. We learned so much from watching GOM run their production. The addition of the two observers ST_Legend and Heavendom instantly elevated our production value; those two deserve much more credit. GOM let us use their music DJ for Day 3 and it really enhanced the show.
All of the casters and hosts were easy to work with for this event. Despite Khaldor being sick, he and Wolf made a great combination and kept the audience lively and engaged. Kevin (CPJ) had somewhat of a breakout weekend. I say somewhat because I've known for a long time that he's a world class caster and great community figure but after this weekend he's finally getting some of the recognition he deserves. DoA can always be counted on to give an entertaining cast, he worked extremely well with anyone he was paired with (including MC and SK Manager Reis). HD and PainUser were as entertaining as ever and delivered when it counted.
Anna, Rachel and Tricia were all incredibly easy to work with and great on stage. Tricia’s game knowledge really improved the post-game interviews and elevated them above standard post-game interviews at eSports events. Anna/Rachel had a great rapport on stage with the players and each other. They handled all of our changes like true professionals and I really enjoyed working with them. Our two translators Susie (LilSusie) and Sue (Smix) were once again on point and always available to help. They also hosted some great interviews with Koreans on LiveU that you should be seeing on our YouTube in the near future.
Our backstage team of Alex, Ken, Ryan and Adrian made sure players were where they needed to be on time and comfortable. The camera operators all worked extremely hard/long shifts and were always going above and beyond. Big thanks to Rachel, Alex, Paul, Brian and Glade. Our PA’s Jun, Ben and Sarah were always available and ready to help in any way – big thanks to them. Our photographer Oliver Yu was always around shooting and he has a great attitude – be on the lookout for more of his photos to be released in the coming days. I have to give a special thanks to my manager Neha who was the unit production manager in charge of the event. She was running around on her feet most of the event putting out fires and making sure we had all the resources we needed to put on the show. She also was able to give me some great advice and insight in the nights leading up to/during the event that really helped me out.
We had some sound issues on Day 1, the most glaring of which was leaving the mic audio of the side stage interview area running during the next game. There was human error that resulted in this not being picked up and corrected sooner. This situation was, to quote Day[9], less than ideal. We added redundancies for Days 2 + 3 to make sure someone was monitoring our stream at all times. We learned a lot from this event and will use that knowledge and experience at the next IPL event.
This event we had a number of KPop music videos from GOM that we used as filler content in between games. I'm curious about the community response to this. The League of Legends fans seemed to love it while SC2 fans were more of a mixed bag. What did you guys think about kpop filler vs top 5’s/player interviews/caster profiles?
In regards to the cutting to player cams in the middle of games: This is something I was directly responsible for as I was calling the show. We would never intentionally cut away during any action in-game. In one instance on Saturday there was a technical error that resulted in us cutting away from a game during a crucial battle. This unsurprisingly prompted a slew of angry community posts. I understand the frustration, but I want to make it clear that the cut in question was an unintentional error and the only times we would intentionally cut away from a game would be during lulls in action.
While Murphy’s Law was in effect for IPL4, we still managed to add a few new elements to our production. The head-to-head player statistics as well as in-game stats/fun facts seemed to go over well with viewers. Warren was our engineer running the stats database (built from the IPL power rankings) and he nailed it. My assistant director Josh Shaw was an absolute beast in master control and he actually ran the switcher for the GSTL finals on Sat Night!
It’s always a great seeing all the familiar faces from eSports at the event, SirScoots, Brett from ESFI, Cody Conners, Pat (ESVDiamond) and all the players. Apologies for the long winded post, thanks for reading and thanks to everyone who attended and watched from home!
Here are some pics:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/HaIQX.jpg)
Master Control
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/wvnP8.jpg)
Josh Shaw my awesome AD and me
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/7EOPH.jpg)
The stage during setup
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/qMk5a.jpg)
The stage fully lit
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/xi8cl.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/Rtydn.jpg)
Our soundboard
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/SpHdw.jpg)
GOM switcher
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/eLXbM.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/nxPbS.jpg)
Mike Morhaime and Dustin Browder in the audience
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/zJ4kL.jpg)
The SC2 Camera Ops!
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/UMz3Y.jpg)
Alex Lowry, Me, Josh Shaw and Neha Tiwari.
 
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The IPL crew seems like a solid and joyful team! That's why IPL was a blast.
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well I think SirScoots explained it perfectly yesterday in the Lo3 show.
What he said was basically that the production level was slightly below that of IPL3 but for all the right reasons. Instead of spending a great deal of money to hire a professional production team, you used your own guys and thus saved a lot of money. You had some rookie mistakes because of that transition but its a learning process and should be well worth it in future tournaments to come.
About the Kpop I hated it!
Imo kpop "artists" are Koreas version of Britney, Bieber, Nsync, Rebecca Black and basically any western boy/teengirl-band ever made.
People argue that taste is subjective. My argument is that some people like shit! personally I dont. No more kpop in the future please.
About all the people on stage as well as the casters I think they all did a great job. I cant really put any finger on anything major. PainUser and especially HD got a lot of hate in the live report thread but imo thats totally unwarrented. A lot of people dont seem to understand that when you talk very fast, mistakes are bound to happen.
Actually I have a single complaint but I dont know if the production crew should be held responsible for this or if it is someone else:
For some craptastic reason MC was invited as co-caster in the Nestea vs Stephano match. This is probably the most hyped up matchup for the last several month´s and you guys decide to make it a "fun cast"!
Whoever´s idea this was must have had a serious brain collapse.
Anyway thats all and I enjoyed most of the tournament.
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I personally dislike Kpop quite a lot and was really surprised it was on the stream. However, I tend to mute between games anyway because commercials, random audience shots, and replaying the same filler stuff (like interviews or profiles, or top 5) over and over, so it didn't bother me that much.
Besides the sound problems though, I thought it was really great!  Thanks for your hard work. I hope the next one is even better.
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Hated the Kpop enough to mute the sound between matches. Please never use it again.
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I don't mind KPOP as much -- if that's what you want to be going for, it's your choice. But don't play the same three songs over and over again.
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I liked the Kpop in between games but I think it would be better to throw in player/caster profiles in every now and then too(for the sake of variety.)
Only complaint was that the caster audio was really low in general(plus it made the commercials way louder because you had to turn volume up). Seems like you fixed that issue later on with having someone watching streams at all times.
Looking foward to IPL5!
P.S. Big bonus in the fact that no trucks ran through internet lines this time. :D
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Don't listen to the haters! KEEP THE KPOP, if you can maybe get some bigger name groups (girl's generation :p). I really enjoyed it though :D
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United States17042 Posts
I loved the kpop, but more variety would be pretty nice.
The sound was great live, but didn't end up working out so well over stream.
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Being the stage manager for this event was nothing short of awesome. We may not have had the same amount of staff we had last time, but we worked just as hard (if not more) than IPL 3. I speak for the SC 2 Stage staff (Alex, Ryan, Adrian, Jun, Ben, Sarah) when I say everyday we worked with only one thing in mind: making the event great for the fans of the game.
All the talent (casters/hosts) I worked with brought their A game and with their on stage experience made everything move much smoother.
Also truly honored to be sitting next to Legend as he did observation during GSTL. He makes observing a viable position at a SC 2 event, no question.
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KPOP, basically I had it muted but enjoyed the scenery 
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On April 13 2012 11:30 GHOSTCLAW wrote:
I loved the kpop, but more variety would be pretty nice.
The sound was great live, but didn't end up working out so well over stream.
this, it was all fine till the same 5 kpop songs where played over and over. more variety = more awesome
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GOMTV is the only organization that has a broadcast which feels like it could be on TV, but then again, IPL has a much more extended broadcasting format.
It felt like such a huge difference from watching IPL on day 1 and then watching GSTL on Saturday night. The sound mixing, overlays, and interludes were much more professional from GOM. For example, IPL continued to play the same AMD commercial about how they were able to achieve an 8.429 clock rate. Gom TV had prepared an array of montages, interviews, and hype videos to fill the gaps. These were seamlessly mixed into the broadcast. On day 3 of IPL, it seemed the crew had learned from GomTV on how to make the broadcast more professional.
To IPL's credit, a 4 hour GomTV broadcast is much more manageable than a 20hr+ super tournament. It's understandable that they would have to play the same ads over and over again. As for the Kpop, I think this was a lame idea. One could only cheer for Kpop vids sarcastically. We enjoy the pretty girls, but IPL shouldn't have tried to make this aspect more Korean or GomTV-like. Optimally they would film more bonus footage like montages and player interviews. I definitely enjoyed the Evil Geniuses Kingston ads.
Overall, it was an awesome event. The best live event I've ever been to. The lights, sound, venue, and crowd were all great. I can tell IPL is constantly striving to improve. I'm sure that IPL5 in August will be even better than this one. I'll definitely be back in Vegas for that.
Thank you everyone for your hard work.
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On April 13 2012 12:03 SmOkeYNaGaTa wrote:
GOMTV is the only organization that has a broadcast which feels like it could be on TV, but then again, IPL has a much more extended broadcasting format.
It felt like such a huge difference from watching IPL on day 1 and then watching GSTL on Saturday night. The sound mixing, overlays, and interludes were much more professional from GOM. For example, IPL continued to play the same AMD commercial about how they were able to achieve an 8.429 clock rate. Gom TV had prepared an array of montages, interviews, and hype videos to fill the gaps. These were seamlessly mixed into the broadcast. On day 3 of IPL, it seemed the crew had learned from GomTV on how to make the broadcast more professional.
To IPL's credit, a 4 hour GomTV broadcast is much more manageable than a 20hr+ super tournament. It's understandable that they would have to play the same ads over and over again. As for the Kpop, I think this was a lame idea. One could only cheer for Kpop vids sarcastically. We enjoy the pretty girls, but IPL shouldn't have tried to make this aspect more Korean or GomTV-like. Optimally they would film more bonus footage like montages and player interviews. I definitely enjoyed the Evil Geniuses Kingston ads.
Overall, it was an awesome event. The best live event I've ever been to. The lights, sound, venue, and crowd were all great. I can tell IPL is constantly striving to improve. I'm sure that IPL5 in August will be even better than this one. I'll definitely be back in Vegas for that.
Thank you everyone for your hard work.
Can't really disagree with any of this.
What you said about 4 hour GSTL finals vs 3 day IPL 4 - this is so true.
I would have liked to create some relevant supplemental content like montages, interviews with coaches/players but we didn't actually know who would be on the main stage on Sunday. We could have guessed but it would have been a lot of work for nothing if we were wrong. I think this is an inherent challenge of the big 2-3 day super tournament format of western eSports.
I actually put some thought into this exact issue weeks leading up to the event and the solution I hatched was to have 1-2 editors work a night shift on Saturday night to create player packages/montages. This would require having recent, relevant footage of the 8 players in the championship bracket (which we wouldn't know until late sat night). Due to logistical/staffing issues we weren't able to attempt this but it's something I think is worth trying for future events. (I think IEM does something similar)
Thanks for your feedback and support!
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I very much enjoyed the tournament, but I felt like it was one step forward, one step backward in some ways. Obviously the big step forward was the partnership with the GSL, the tremendously talented and high-profile player pool, and the spectacular venue, but the production was clearly tiers below that of IPL3, even excepting the unfortunate sound errors on day 1. There seemed to be a lot of stream issues (lag, the need to refresh every so often, the inability of the IGN multiviewer to actually work), the downtime between games seemed excruciating (especially since there seemed to be absolutely no downtime in IPL3), the repetitive ads were mind-numbing in their frequency. The camera angles, lighting, and player cams didn't seem as crisp or professional as IPL3's, either. I also found the strobelighting after matches to be very distracting and a bit chintzy, frankly. There were some obvious scheduling issues to boot, as clearly things went on way too long on the last day, forcing the awards ceremony to be reduced to a one-minute "Here's-your-trophy-and-check-now-let's-get-out-of-here" hustle which did neither the event nor the very deserving players justice.
It was unfortunate that the GSTL teams were not actually onstage, a la the GSTL in GOM Studios, but rather seated in the front rows with the rest of the audience. This made it somewhat hard to make out the players in the darkened audience setting, and really seemed to put a damper on the usual player-picking shenanigans and ceremonies which define the GSTL. The mood for both teams seemed very subdued in comparison, even after wins.
I mentioned this in the IPL3 feedback thread, but I don't really understand the need to have all the female hosts glitzed up in cocktail dresses onstage. I suppose it has something to do with the casino venue, but I find such attire at odds with what is supposed to be a sporting event -- you don't see sideline reporters strutting up to coaches and players in strappy, glittery dresses for their interviews in any sport, whether it's the NFL or the NBA. The entire "glamour" angle simply seems awkward when juxtaposed to players -- and event interviewers -- dressed in t-shirts and jeans. Personally I would prefer something more along the lines of what these sideline reporters would wear, either with suits or more casual dresses similar to what Tricia wore on the last day.
I quite missed the top 5 montages, player/caster profiles, and other extra content from IPL3. I thought IPL3 had the best filler content of any event, barring the GSL's old "player documentaries," so to see it missing and replaced by a constant recycling of ads and Kpop was quite jarring and disappointing. I realize that music is a subjective matter, but personally I did not enjoy the Kpop at all. I also missed such surprisingly entertaining events as Incontrol's impromptu player panel, which to me was one of the (many) highlights of IPL3.
While much of what I said above seems highly critical, it's because IPL is the one event I'm most invested in aside from the GSL, so I wish the best for it in the future! Clearly the IPL is making strides in most of the right areas, and I have high hopes that any speed bumps in the transition will be gradually smoothed out in the future.
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please use filler content like top plays, recaps interviews, for day for example use scenes from the season before, for day 2 interviews, highlights from the day before. don't play korean versions of western 'pop' music, try to find music even unknown that fits the footage(?), create your own ads. iirc i never saw any IPL ads for upcoming season, latest events, your homepage or else.
use more overlays on screen, display the host names and player names as they are introduced on stage. add their twitter accounts and the like there.
add more info to your overlay (round of ??, bo??)
sry for any errors, just a quick collection of thoughts
overall IPL4 delivered, it was great
ps: i liked the setting of ipl3 more. get rid of the chairs, use a cinema/theatre (like IPL3/Dreamhack Inv/Gamers Assembly/Blizzard Cup Euro)
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On April 13 2012 13:13 pretensile wrote:
There seemed to be a lot of stream issues (lag, the need to refresh every so often, the inability of the IGN multiviewer to actually work),
We had some serious problems with our hardware encoder at the event.
On April 13 2012 13:13 pretensile wrote:
the downtime between games seemed excruciating (especially since there seemed to be absolutely no downtime in IPL3),
Is this in regards to the main stage stream or the secondary qualifier room stream? On the main stage we rarely had more than 4-5 minutes of downtime in between games.
On April 13 2012 13:13 pretensile wrote:
the repetitive ads were mind-numbing in their frequency. The camera angles, lighting, and player cams didn't seem as crisp or professional as IPL3's, either.
This was a result of using more in-house/local staff and less (expensive) contractors. I'm in agreement with you on this.
On April 13 2012 13:13 pretensile wrote:
It was unfortunate that the GSTL teams were not actually onstage, a la the GSTL in GOM Studios, but rather seated in the front rows with the rest of the audience. This made it somewhat hard to make out the players in the darkened audience setting...
We thought about ways to put the players on stage but there wasn't enough room. The 4 booths are large and the casters desk is right in the middle. We also had a 1 hour turnaround time on this setup as IPL 4 ended at 4PM on Saturday and GSTL Finals started at 5. We decided along with GOM that the best solution was to have the players in the front rows of the audience.
As for the rest of your post - I'm mostly in agreement but can't publicly address some of those issues. I do however appreciate the feedback. Also don't feel bad for criticizing us, my internal list of issues for improvement with the event is ~4 times longer than yours
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Great blog! Was a pleasure working with you, hope it will happen again in the future!
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On April 13 2012 13:13 pretensile wrote:
I very much enjoyed the tournament, but I felt like it was one step forward, one step backward in some ways. Obviously the big step forward was the partnership with the GSL, the tremendously talented and high-profile player pool, and the spectacular venue, but the production was clearly tiers below that of IPL3, even excepting the unfortunate sound errors on day 1. There seemed to be a lot of stream issues (lag, the need to refresh every so often, the inability of the IGN multiviewer to actually work), the downtime between games seemed excruciating (especially since there seemed to be absolutely no downtime in IPL3), the repetitive ads were mind-numbing in their frequency. The camera angles, lighting, and player cams didn't seem as crisp or professional as IPL3's, either. I also found the strobelighting after matches to be very distracting and a bit chintzy, frankly. There were some obvious scheduling issues to boot, as clearly things went on way too long on the last day, forcing the awards ceremony to be reduced to a one-minute "Here's-your-trophy-and-check-now-let's-get-out-of-here" hustle which did neither the event nor the very deserving players justice.
It was unfortunate that the GSTL teams were not actually onstage, a la the GSTL in GOM Studios, but rather seated in the front rows with the rest of the audience. This made it somewhat hard to make out the players in the darkened audience setting, and really seemed to put a damper on the usual player-picking shenanigans and ceremonies which define the GSTL. The mood for both teams seemed very subdued in comparison, even after wins.
I mentioned this in the IPL3 feedback thread, but I don't really understand the need to have all the female hosts glitzed up in cocktail dresses onstage. I suppose it has something to do with the casino venue, but I find such attire at odds with what is supposed to be a sporting event -- you don't see sideline reporters strutting up to coaches and players in strappy, glittery dresses for their interviews in any sport, whether it's the NFL or the NBA. The entire "glamour" angle simply seems awkward when juxtaposed to players -- and event interviewers -- dressed in t-shirts and jeans. Personally I would prefer something more along the lines of what these sideline reporters would wear, either with suits or more casual dresses similar to what Tricia wore on the last day.
I quite missed the top 5 montages, player/caster profiles, and other extra content from IPL3. I thought IPL3 had the best filler content of any event, barring the GSL's old "player documentaries," so to see it missing and replaced by a constant recycling of ads and Kpop was quite jarring and disappointing. I realize that music is a subjective matter, but personally I did not enjoy the Kpop at all. I also missed such surprisingly entertaining events as Incontrol's impromptu player panel, which to me was one of the (many) highlights of IPL3.
While much of what I said above seems highly critical, it's because IPL is the one event I'm most invested in aside from the GSL, so I wish the best for it in the future! Clearly the IPL is making strides in most of the right areas, and I have high hopes that any speed bumps in the transition will be gradually smoothed out in the future.
Mostly I agree with your post though I think you nitpick a bit here and there. I had some sound issues one day 1 and early day 2 but I only once had video issues (the MC match). I also had no lag whatsoever during the entire event. I also really enjoyed the GSTL performance and don't really agree that the teams seemed subdued in any way (even though it may have been even better if they had made a place on the stage for the teams).
I absolutely agree about the filler content however, and like you, that was one of my favorite aspects of IPL3 which was replaced by kpop at IPL4. I don't like kpop, but even if I did, I would still be disappointed that player panels and video montages were no longer present. I think this is also part of the reason why it seemed like there was more downtime during this event, even though I don't think there really was. I also agree with you point about the hosts who are terribly overdressed compared to the players. Its jarring to look at and I feel it makes some of the players rather uncomfortable as well.
All in all I still really enjoyed the event, but I certainly expect a lot better at IPL5. I feel like the event suffered a little bit from lack of organization and prompt decision making. Some of the technical issues could probably have been avoided with some more testing and a better more flexible schedule should have been devised (so the best most important games could always be shown). I hope the broad strokes of the event so to speak will be mastered for IPL5 so they can then focus on the little things to make a truly spectacular event.
Since there isn't an IPL4 feedback thread (that I could find at least) i'll add a few more things...
-I really enjoyed the casting at this event. I thought all of them did a great job including HD and Painuser who have been unfairly criticized in my opinion.
-In contrast, I thought the hosts were poor in many regards. They seemed very out of touch with gaming in general, have little to no knowledge of Starcraft 2 and don't have a good enough stage presence. If they can't improve on these things I feel like they should be replaced. Honestly, I think the translators, lilsuzie and smix would actually do a better job as they seem worlds more comfortable with the gamers.
-Catspyjamas was great the whole event. I listened to some of his casts with Doa during the ToC and I thought he was ok but made a number of casting errors. He improved dramatically in this event and worked well with every caster he partnered with.
-I feel like qualifiers some have more stringent rules on who can participate. I feel like it would be better to do qualifiers by region and not allow people residing in other regions to take part in them, that way we get a more varied player pool. I would think something weighted similar to UEFA champions league would be the best idea. Open bracket obviously open to anyone who wants to come. No invites except top 2 from IPL4.
-Be sure to mic up the crowd all the time for IPL5. It was very loud at the end of day2 and day3, but day1 was quite sad, and in part I think it was due to put setup of mics to capture crowd noise (though I could be wrong and the crowd may just have been lame that day).
-I loved the venue and stage setup visually, it was truly phenomenal.
-I got the impression it was a great event to attend for both players and fans.
-More player panels and better filler content.
Thats all I can think of right now.
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I don't mind Kpop but I'd recommend not using Kpop and attempting to find alternative methods to handle downtime
SC2 concurrent viewership tended to decrease every time Kpop was used to fill downtime
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EPT
