esports
One of the most recognisable hosts in esports, Paul ‘RedEye’ Chaloner, tells us how to become the next big name host in the world of esports.
Paul ‘RedEye’ Chaloner is one of the most recognisable faces in the world of esports. Over the last few years he has seemingly hosted every single esports event out there, covering every game you can think all over the globe. There are few hosts that can match his impressive resume, and as a result he is one of the most sought after men in esports.
With his expert knowledge of hosting events, he’s now working with some up and coming talent through his Code Red agency and helping to develop the next wave of top tier hosts. But for many who don’t have the guidance of one of the best in the biz, breaking into the world of hosting events can seem a bit daunting. Everyone knows the best route to becoming a caster is just to start doing it – but for hosting that seems to be a little more difficult.
To find out how to become a top tier esports host, and to grab you some top tips for doing just that, we sat down with RedEye to get his thoughts on the matter.
With casters, it's quite an obvious path that you go down to get started. You boot up the game and then shout over it on Twitch. But for hosting, it's a little bit different, because there aren’t those opportunities to just do it in your bedroom. So if I wanted to become the next RedEye, how would I go about doing that?
Well I think that you have to look at the skills that you need, as a host, and then figure out how you get those. I don't think it's necessarily you go on Twitch and you go ‘right, I'm going to host a esports show on Twitch’. You can do that, but I don't necessarily think that would always help. I think doing a show where you do host it; like Steve ‘Toffees’ Pierce has a show, and he's built up his presentation skills by doing that alone. And that teaches you some of the basics of conversation flow and how to move the conversation on between people. That's one skill that you need as a host. That will do that for you. So, start a show on Twitch – that's relatively easy to do.
Obviously a lot of top hosts originally got their start in the world of casting and moved onto the host role, is that a good way to try and get into it?
I think commentating actually does help you, because you learn pace and structure and language, and you can figure all of that stuff out and figure it into the show itself. So I think that's relatively straightforward. Someone's got a competition or a match on at any point in time and any game that you want to choose from, and you can pretty much go and do it and practise it yourself.
You don't have to stream it on Twitch, you know, you can do it into a microphone, record it, and listen to it back, or give it to other people. I've often said, give it to other people that have done the job and ask them to critique it for you. That's always very helpful as well.
What’s the one thing people need to know about hosting before going in?
To be really good at it, it's actually quite an unselfish kind of role. You're there to make everyone else shine and everyone else look great. You're not there to look great, you're not there to look intelligent, you're not there to be smart, or to come up with funny quips. That's the rest of the panel that you enable to do that.
So it's having that kind of regimen of some kind that you could do that for the panel, and know that if you do that, you will look good too, because you are doing your job, right? And that's quite a hard skill to do. There is always a thought in your head that you sort of think, ‘Oh I'm doing a really bad job, or I'm being quiet, or I haven't said anything for three minutes, and that feels awkward.’ And that takes time and a bit of experience.
Is there a simple route to learning how to host, or even just be on a broadcast outside of just doing it?
Broadcast school. Go back to uni or college, you know, go learn about how to broadcast. That's a great way of doing things. I did a small college course, back in the day, when I first realised I was going on TV. I’d worked in radio for three years, but I didn’t know how to do camera work. Where do I look? How do I dress? What do I say? Where do I look when I'm speaking? Where do I look when someone else is speaking? I don't know. A nine-month course in the evenings helped me do that.
Some people need more. I was very lucky I had good teachers, good people around me, and I think that's also part of it, you know, surrounding yourself with other people – and the good guys and girls that are doing it now have done that. They've gone out and seeked other people's advice and not just one person, but several people.
Because the worst thing you can do is go, ‘yeah I want to be the next Alex “Machine” Richardson, so I'll just listen to what Machine says and he'll tell me how to do it and then I'll copy him.’ That's a terrible idea. It's a terrible idea, as good as that seems, that's a terrible idea. You've got to come out and talk to people like Rachel ‘Seltzer’ Quirico and Marcus ‘djWHEAT’ Graham, and then some other people in Asia and how they do it differently there, and pull that collective knowledge and make your own personality from that. And using all the little bits and pieces that you've learned from everyone else – then I think you can be a unique personality and a unique host.
How is the world of hosting looking, are there a lot of up and coming hosts and are there opportunities for them all?
I think the future’s really bright. I think it's much better than it was, say five years ago, when people would hire me because I was the only one. It's much nicer now to be hired based on the fact there's some competition in places. I think we're very lucky right now and we have a lot [of hosts] coming through and we have some very well established veterans.
