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Mom, I'm a streamer now

Hello everyone, my name is Vanya, I am a team leader at Tinkoff.ru. In combination - a member of the program committee Frontend Conf and RIT ++. You may be interested in my thoughts about online speaking.



The coronavirus epidemic has affected many areas, including the event sphere. Conference organizers are forced to look for workarounds and come up with new formats. You have probably already seen the announcements of mitaps and major conferences online. Believe me, these are only the first attempts of the organizers and the brainstorming that is going on in this area will lead us to much more spectacular and “cannon” formats.

Perhaps this is a new reality and online conferences will line up with offline events - time will tell. In this article, I want to share my view of what an online presentation really should be.

Let's start


In order to better feel what the speaker needs now, so that his presentation would be interesting, entertaining and inspiring, I propose to look at the sphere that was originally born online and still continues to exist there successfully - e-sports.
If you ever opened twitch.tv and watched streams of your favorite games, then you already roughly understand what your 60 minutes of broadcast at the conference should look like.

About Twitch
twitch.tv — . «», . «» , , - «». , , . - The International .

Back to the performance


At 40-60 minutes of your broadcast at the conference you have to get used to the role of a streamer. Let's start with the technical side.

Internet connection


When was the last time you called your provider and shouted: "Not a single break!" ?

It is worth calling him once more a couple of weeks before the performance, saying that you are seeing a network failure. The provider will carry out a series of actions that will reboot your equipment and grid. Enough for a start. Next, start ping to a popular resource and see if you have a stable Internet. If yes - excellent, this item is completed. If not, repeat the procedure “Not a single gap” until the connection becomes stable. And, well, and again: no wifi on the broadcast, just a wire.

Devices


In the streaming world, “devices” are what you play, listen to, and film yourself. Top streamers usually have sponsorship devices. Also, light falls on them qualitatively and a good angle from the camera is selected. If you don’t have a sponsor, you will have to buy a couple of high-quality devices. At least:

  • Headphones with a good microphone (experts in the comments, tell me, please, a couple of models). Believe me, if the sound is bad, then nobody will appreciate your memes, and it will not work out to convey useful information to the listener. And no airpods! They sound just disgusting. Ideally, of course, a separate high-quality microphone, but why do you need it if you are not a podcast?
  • Good webcam (experts, I need your help).
  • Nice light. Believe me, on the "Aliexpress" in bulk light. I ordered a light for the filming of the blog "In the office" on "Alik". In general, such a circular light is enough for you.


Cool if you have:

  • Quality chair. If you sit on a stool with a crooked back, you will quickly get tired. The average seat is in the region of 15,000-20,000 ₽. After the performance, your neck and back will finally stop hurting when working from home. In my opinion, a good side effect. I use this .
  • Any merchandise and other paraphernalia. Come up with an interesting composition in the frame. No need to sit with a white wall in the background. All sorts of books on programming, figures from your favorite games and the like will decorate your frame.
  • Also, play with the light, the main light plus the contra controls - here you can look what's what.


  • If you have pets, then their appearance in the frame in the background will do nothing but tenderness for your viewers.

In this article, the author spoke well about the subtleties of choosing devices.

Now about you and your environment


For 60 minutes, only pets can walk in the background. Imagine: you are making a report, and in the background, your father went to the refrigerator without a t-shirt. Or spouse walks talking on the phone. This will spoil the impression of your performance.

You yourself before the show go to the shower, wash your hair, comb your hair and prepare clothes for the show. No need to wear a jacket and tie. But you should not sit in stretched sweatshirts and sweatshirts. “Sap dvach” , in short :)

Ask your neighbors not to drill the walls for these 60 minutes. If instead of neighbors you have a team of construction and repair workers working behind the wall, a small present will help them take a break for a couple of hours. Otherwise, the soundtrack to your performance will be the sounds of a punch and a hammer.

When you speak offline to your audience, interacting with your audience is easier. Which of us did not raise a hand on the report ? Everything is different online, you can ask people to put a “+” in the chat. But it will be much cooler if you come up with something more interesting than a plus sign. Any creative is welcome.

Fountains of charisma online is very difficult, but you can’t leave sweets . So add some expression to your behavior. Without fanaticism, of course, but you should not be a cracker.

Soft


If you love Gentoo Linux, look towards OBS . For those who do not want to bother with building software for the stream, I advise you to use streamlabs . It has everything you need for beginners in streaming. Let's walk through how to set up a stream. Of course, in 60 minutes you are unlikely to collect donates, and there will be nowhere to follow you, but you can take something from there.

Layout


This is such a thing that fits like a frame under your activity windows. What is visible in the screenshot below?



  1. Chat
  2. Browser window.
  3. Streamer webcam.
  4. The purpose of collecting donations.
  5. Info.

Everything around is the layout. If you do not configure the layout, then there will be a black background in the background, this is not cool.

Content


In the format of an online presentation, you have a lot of opportunities that were not available offline.

Seriously, which of us has not heard the phrase "You can’t use your laptop?" And here you have not just what you can with your own, but what you need! Your convenient workplace, you are sitting in a familiar environment. Therefore, do not limit yourself to a presentation! Feel free to switch windows to demos, useful articles and so on. This will diversify your content and bring interactive performance.

To summarize


It is not easy to be a speaker, only recently you asked to raise your hand, and now you should know the sphere of streaming!

Watch “Twitch” (if you haven’t watched), learn from streamers how to interact with the audience. Now is the time when you can come up with new chips and set a fashion for online performances.

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