At the UKIC Season 5 Division 1 LAN finals UKCSGO catches up with one of the commentators, Harry “index” Bayliss.
Working with Tim “TIMMO” Musters, the duo have worked the last two UKIC finals, and are about to add a third to their tally.
Before the Grand Finals start, index talks about his previous experience working on UKIC finals, their freedom on the broadcast, and who he thinks will lift the trophy.
You can find the full video interview at the end of the article.
Firstly, how are you doing today?
Good. I had a chilled drive over here, did hit every single red light in Sheffield on the way in. The last 30 minutes of my journey was 3 miles. But, I am here now.
As a commentator, how is it coming into your third UKIC finals?
It is great, the first one we did was in Birmingham which was really cool, it was an arena type thing. The last one was in Sheffield, the same as this. It is a very different vibe for both of them, when you are in an arena you are trying to entertain a crowd. For the finals in Sheffield, you can be a bit more chill and throw goofy ideas around. It is nice because UKIC has given us a lot of freedom to come out with segments and pitch them. They normally let us do whatever we want.
You mention the arena event, an event that was early on in your career how was that experience?
It was electric, so good. When you listen to the tier one events with them casting in an arena, you can hear it echoing in the room. When I was talking I could hear myself echo around and that was super cool. There was a crowd there reacting which felt amazing.
It was very early, and was quite terrified. When they put us on air I just locked in and it felt like being in a bedroom again, just a lot cooler.
index at the UKIC Season 5 Division 1 Final
You were talking about ideas from the last season of UKIC, is there anything new for this season?
We have a telestrator which is a touch screen TV, like a weatherman which we want to use to break down the highlights. If someone gets a big multi kill or a super impactful round we can break down some of the aspects of it. Are they being disciplined in site holds, and doing a job as an anchor correctly? I have recorded some third-person perspectives and POVs, hopefully, we can mix that in with a 2D demo viewer.
Looking at the finals, we have ALASKA versus 8Sins. We have all seen their rivalry, what are your thoughts going into today?
If 8Sins were ever going to beat ALASKA, today is the time to do it. You are in a studio which is less stressful than a stage. You also have the fact that ALASKA haven’t really been practising for a couple of weeks, they are a team on the way out.
We have all seen them putting LFT posts out, they don’t have a couch with them, and this feels like the last hurrah. So because they are not practising super hard, they are weaker and this is the best opportunity 8Sins will get.
