Talking

If you work on your own, it’s relatively simple to choose when to dothis. After a round in Counter-Strike, after a big fight in StarCraftwhen both players return to base, after a big team fight in Dota orLeague of Legends are all good times to insert some dead air. Itcalms the commentary down, resets everything and allows you tocome back in with something else.If you work with a co-commentator it’s a little harder, but the sametiming applies. I’ve found that hand signals work really well whenyou want to insert some dead air, with you asking your cocommentatorwith a hand signal not to talk until the time is right.How long you leave it before coming back in is actually much harderto gauge and will need a little trial and error in each particulargame. Obviously if the match kicks off again with some major action,you’ll need to come back in quickly. If, however, the game isstill in a lull, I’ve found that waiting anywhere from 5 to 15 secondscan work fine.These dead air gaps will also prick up your audience’s ears as theywill subconsciously wonder what’s going on because they can’t hearanything - this is great for grabbing attention in a long match.There are many times when you can use dead air but one of themost powerful is during the winning moment, especially when it’s agrand final on a big stage. Let the pictures do the work. Let theemotions come through the screen rather than talking over them.It’s unlikely you could ever do it justice, no matter how great acommentator you are, and all of the best sports moments have theperfect use of dead air at the point of winning a championship, cupor title.46