Grim Tuesday
Smash Legend
Link to original post: [drupal=5168]Smash Commentating "Don'ts"[/drupal]
I've been watching a lot of matches lately, and I'm kind-of appalled by the god-awful commentary some of them have. I dunno if other people consider these "mistakes" like I do, but either way, here are my 5 "Don'ts" of Smash commentary that I think players should keep in mind while commentating:
1. Don't make absolute claims and then struggle to support them.
This is the most common problem I see; the commentator will say something about the players, the match-up or the stage and more often than not, this claim will end up being false. The commentator, in an attempt to redeem themselves or something, will spend the next minute either explaining how shocked they are that the match isn't happening as they expected, attempting to justify the falsified claim by making even more claims (digging a deeper hole for themselves) or making sure to jump on every opportunity where they ARE correct (regardless of how often they were wrong or how "barely" correct they are).
If you want to say things about the players/match-up/stage/whatever that you aren't sure about; let the listeners know that you aren't sure! "From what I've seen today, M2K doesn't seem to like glide attacking very much in this match-up, and that seems to be what is happening right now" is almost certainly not going to box you into a corner, at least compared to a statement like "M2K doesn't glide attack in this match-up." If you later find out you were wrong, just give an off-hand "Oh, looks like M2K is glide-attacking in the MU. That is probably because of x" and then move on.
This was hard to explain so I'll give an example:
"Mew2King doesn't glide attack very often in the Ice Climbers match-up. Oh, wow. He is using Glide Attack a lot more than he usually does, this is really strange. I still can't believe how often he is glide attacking, he must know that it is effective against Vinnie's playstyle. Oh, Vinnie grabbed M2K out of Glide Attack, I knew it was a bad decision. I knew Vinnie would adapt eventually." etc...
2. Don't over-explain the match-up.
This is a pretty basic one. Explaining the match-up is good in commentary because it can fill time when nothing worth mentioning is happening, lets you segue into the relationship between the decisions the players made and how the MU works, and most importantly lets less experienced players know what is going on.
The problem is when a commentator keeps talking about the match-up and all of it's nuances for longer than is necessary. Listening to match-ups isn't anywhere near as entertaining as listening to information about the players (at least, for me) unless it is an uncommon match-up. Instead of giving the listeners a paragraph of information at the start of every match, explain the basics of the match-up and make quick comments on the little gimmicks and nuances between the characters as they happen.
3. Don't pretend to know things.
Look, it's ok if you don't know how the Sonic vs. Jigglypuff match-up is played. I could probably count the number of people who do on one hand. That isn't an excuse to spout gibberish just because you want to seem confident to/impress the listeners.
In situations where you legitimately don't know what is happening - Get someone else to commentate (either instead of you, or with you)! If you can't get someone more knowledgeable to help you out, make it clear that you are learning the match-up just like the listeners/watchers are. I can't really think of a way to explain how to do that, but it shouldn't be difficult for anyone with public speaking and general Smash experience.
4. Don't talk about irrelevant things.
The match is almost always more important than what you are eating. Don't get distracted just because you are at a tournament and always remember that your listeners won't have the context that you do.
Talking about other things that are happening at the tournament is fine (e.g. Oh my god, Wobbles beat Mango!); but pretty much nothing else is. There are situations where you can talk about other things, but don't unless you can actually spot these situations.
5. Don't talk about yourself.
Talking about what you would do in the different situations the players are in comes off as really condescending and narrow-sighted. This applies even if you are better than the players in question, but is especially annoying if you are a relative nobody. You know how much everyone hates backseat drivers? You know how much everyone hates the guy who says "Bro, if I was there, I would've beaten the **** out of that ****!"? That's what it's like. There really isn't any better way to explain it than that; talking about yourself while commentating might seem like a good way of imparting information to the listeners, but it just sounds egotistical.
And that's it, hope this doesn't come off as preachy, but I believe commentating is a great tool to expand our community that we could collectively brush up on
I've been watching a lot of matches lately, and I'm kind-of appalled by the god-awful commentary some of them have. I dunno if other people consider these "mistakes" like I do, but either way, here are my 5 "Don'ts" of Smash commentary that I think players should keep in mind while commentating:
1. Don't make absolute claims and then struggle to support them.
This is the most common problem I see; the commentator will say something about the players, the match-up or the stage and more often than not, this claim will end up being false. The commentator, in an attempt to redeem themselves or something, will spend the next minute either explaining how shocked they are that the match isn't happening as they expected, attempting to justify the falsified claim by making even more claims (digging a deeper hole for themselves) or making sure to jump on every opportunity where they ARE correct (regardless of how often they were wrong or how "barely" correct they are).
If you want to say things about the players/match-up/stage/whatever that you aren't sure about; let the listeners know that you aren't sure! "From what I've seen today, M2K doesn't seem to like glide attacking very much in this match-up, and that seems to be what is happening right now" is almost certainly not going to box you into a corner, at least compared to a statement like "M2K doesn't glide attack in this match-up." If you later find out you were wrong, just give an off-hand "Oh, looks like M2K is glide-attacking in the MU. That is probably because of x" and then move on.
This was hard to explain so I'll give an example:
"Mew2King doesn't glide attack very often in the Ice Climbers match-up. Oh, wow. He is using Glide Attack a lot more than he usually does, this is really strange. I still can't believe how often he is glide attacking, he must know that it is effective against Vinnie's playstyle. Oh, Vinnie grabbed M2K out of Glide Attack, I knew it was a bad decision. I knew Vinnie would adapt eventually." etc...
2. Don't over-explain the match-up.
This is a pretty basic one. Explaining the match-up is good in commentary because it can fill time when nothing worth mentioning is happening, lets you segue into the relationship between the decisions the players made and how the MU works, and most importantly lets less experienced players know what is going on.
The problem is when a commentator keeps talking about the match-up and all of it's nuances for longer than is necessary. Listening to match-ups isn't anywhere near as entertaining as listening to information about the players (at least, for me) unless it is an uncommon match-up. Instead of giving the listeners a paragraph of information at the start of every match, explain the basics of the match-up and make quick comments on the little gimmicks and nuances between the characters as they happen.
3. Don't pretend to know things.
Look, it's ok if you don't know how the Sonic vs. Jigglypuff match-up is played. I could probably count the number of people who do on one hand. That isn't an excuse to spout gibberish just because you want to seem confident to/impress the listeners.
In situations where you legitimately don't know what is happening - Get someone else to commentate (either instead of you, or with you)! If you can't get someone more knowledgeable to help you out, make it clear that you are learning the match-up just like the listeners/watchers are. I can't really think of a way to explain how to do that, but it shouldn't be difficult for anyone with public speaking and general Smash experience.
4. Don't talk about irrelevant things.
The match is almost always more important than what you are eating. Don't get distracted just because you are at a tournament and always remember that your listeners won't have the context that you do.
Talking about other things that are happening at the tournament is fine (e.g. Oh my god, Wobbles beat Mango!); but pretty much nothing else is. There are situations where you can talk about other things, but don't unless you can actually spot these situations.
5. Don't talk about yourself.
Talking about what you would do in the different situations the players are in comes off as really condescending and narrow-sighted. This applies even if you are better than the players in question, but is especially annoying if you are a relative nobody. You know how much everyone hates backseat drivers? You know how much everyone hates the guy who says "Bro, if I was there, I would've beaten the **** out of that ****!"? That's what it's like. There really isn't any better way to explain it than that; talking about yourself while commentating might seem like a good way of imparting information to the listeners, but it just sounds egotistical.
And that's it, hope this doesn't come off as preachy, but I believe commentating is a great tool to expand our community that we could collectively brush up on
