NiP Movie Editor Kevin 'tweeday' Tweedale Interviewed: 'I miss having the large amount of producers competing'

This article was originally published on GameSpot's sister site onGamers.com, which was dedicated to esports coverage.

Hello Kevin! How are you? I assume you've been having one of your regular busy days?

Hey! I'm doing fine thanks! Just like everyone else in the world, it has indeed been one of those busy days at work :)

Characterize your growth as a moviemaker over the last 2,5 years both personally and technically?

I guess describing it as unpredictable and weird at times is best! Technically it hasn't been much of a change since I am still using the same programs I always have, just more advanced and in-depth than before. Along with becoming much more confident in my ability to be creative, it's the experience that comes with time.

As a person I think I have become more realistic, and most importantly I have grown out of my naive and juvenile behaviour into a more responsible adult, due to having to handle everything professionally and being in the spotlight. On the road in the last 2.5 years I have been lucky to get to know many different personalities ranging from various positions inside and outside of eSports, gaming and marketing which has taught me a lot. I have gotten to know many different ways to approach things, and many people taught me lessons and I would like to thank them a great deal.

To sum up I have just grew leaps and bounds as a person with this job. My audience is beyond any of my expectations and I couldn't be more thankful for where I am standing right now, in this amazing job, finally being able to live in the CS world!

It's obvious that eSports is rapidly professionalizing, but how do you see the change in video content being produced from CS:S/1.6 to CS:GO?

For me it has its good and its bad sides. On the one hand it is becoming more content based - which is good! However, on the other hand, I am missing out on well produced fragmovies which I used to enjoy in the old days - I still have hundreds and hundreds of them on my external hard drive from 1.6 and CSS times. I am sure that when people have figured out the bugs and issues with regards to recording CS:GO we will start to see more productions in that area. It's great to have so many dedicated people spending hours and hours delivering video content, but I miss having the large amount of producers in the old days of CSS always competing with each other to produce the next big fragmovie!

I am not saying that they don't exist now, some of the productions I see are immense - it's just gotten much less than the times I remember from back when Infected Productions was up and running and there were thousands of projects announced, created and released by the community. The future looks bright though as there are people such as errzy and MAKKU who seem really talented, so I’m optimistic for the future of quality productions!

How do you see the importance of skilled video editors with eSports knowhow for the scene? Could someone with more video knowledge and less eSports knowledge do a similar job?

I do believe that there are a lot of skilled video editors within the eSports scene and particularly in the CS scene that can handle programs better than many people who do it for a living (including myself - there are many people that have a deeper knowledge than me in terms of 3D work). The eSports scene just has this unique attraction that recording and uploading content can be done easily by anybody, and a great and skilled video editor can make anything appealing to anybody.

Some common tips that I have always abided by are; don't cut the action too fast, keep the deathnotice visible as it is one of the most important things for people to see what is going on, and do not roughly cut off great plays just to make it match the music. It always helps for the editor to know the game, and how exciting and great the eSports footage is to the fan, (why do people get involved, why do they enjoy watching it, what makes people spend hours and hours daily following eSports) all help. And at this point I would say that people with less eSports knowledge won't be able to do a better job at producing eSports clips even if they are better skilled in their respective tools. The best example of this so far in 2014 would be the stream of Copenhagen Games 2014.

It's turned into a very legitimate job since CS:GO and other games have blown up. As it is you stand far above the rest in terms of produced content and regular viewership. Are you surprised there isn't more internal 'competition' and expertise in the scene?

There is a hell of a load of people that create content, although I don't feel like we are competitors at all (but we do have some fun times at the events where me and HLTV battle to see who gets things up faster haha) - we rather help each other out and that is really great.

I would love to see more video editors in the scene because that spurs me on and motivates me even more on a daily basis to bring my A-game, but thinking about it maybe there are already enough, I don't want the competition to get too hard! I do wholeheartedly enjoy that there are people stepping up to the plate and creating great movies, as it pressures me to do the same to ensure that my audience knows that I got to where am by creating Fragmovies too! I am, after all, happy and still overwhelmed when I look at my statistics on Youtube and other platforms, I am more surprised that people still enjoy watching my content so much after all these years! :)

You also make a lot of peripheral content apart from your game play related videos, such as box openings, editing streams etcetera. What's the plan behind this content, how time consuming is it and are you surprised at the attention it gathers?

Actually I started them simply because it was fun to sit and stream, directly answer questions and have more of a personal connection with the viewers and subscribers and such! It's still loads of fun to have so many people basically ''talking'' with you via the chat and interacting with you, showing their support.

There is no real plan - I just try to keep going. On one hand my audience and the growing eSports scene motivates me to do it and makes me happy, and on the other hand, sometimes it is so time consuming that I need to cool-down and take some personal time when I feel like I've been a lonely warrior in front of the PC for too long! I think I will always be surprised at the level of attention I receive from the scene.

Do you think you also have a responsibility of increasing eSports exposure beyond serving people who are already eSports enthusiasts? What kind of influence do your videos have, in your opinion, beyond serving the pre-existing community?

I do believe I have somewhat of a responsibility to at least help grow eSports in regard to Counter Strike. The difference is that I also do collaborations with bigger Youtubers that have a wider range of content and offer more games, and this leads to many viewers telling me that they came to my channel to watch some videos and ended up staying to watch CS:GO videos, whether it be highlights or the bigger movies and such!

My daily content is there simply to showcase the awesome highlights that happen in the Counter Strike scene and to show the reality of eSports for the players. I think they encourage people to take a look at the game, as they are watching the pros play and they see that this type of career is possible - they hopefully get excited and spurred on to follow their dreams and when that fire is ignited it is very difficult to put it out. I try to make people want to play the game that they are watching on my channel.

As for my full-length fragmovies I try to make them as appealing as possible to anyone that is watching them, whether they are in eSports or not, showing the excitement and behind the scenes, what is at stake for the players and more. It should show them that what is happening is great to watch as well as to experience.

When you are outside of eSports and CS any video that is missing footage, that has missing explanations has no value at all for the viewer, so my goal with the event movies of NiP is to make them understand what they are watching and to get them hooked even if they don't have any knowledge about the game itself and the high level of strategy that goes on in-game. I am really proud when somebody who has no idea about Counter-Strike and eSports enjoys one of my videos, as I have achieved what I set out to do!

If NiP weren't there, would you still be doing the same job within eSports?

Hard to say, but I guess not. I originally started off working with mTw on minimum wage and did that for over a year. Then I went to work for an agency again at minimum wage - which ended up frustrating me about my situation of working all day and receiving very little in return. I was pretty much unhappy with my work, with the videos I had to create for clients and the situation in general. I simply doubted myself and the career path I was pursuing.

In the end I had a few talks with NiP back in April 2013 (right before Copenhagen Games 2013) and I decided to quit my agency job and start to work in CS full time with NiP being the deciding factor if it'd be possible or not. Thankfully, they took me on board and yeah, ever since then it's been great and here I am; alive and kicking - highly enjoying the job I am doing and simply not even slightly worried about my future anymore with CS:GO. I’m confident the game will grow far beyond anyone's expectations!

The last words are all yours.

I would like to thank of course the guys behind Ninjas in Pyjamas - Emil and Gustav; the players of our CS:GO squad that are simply brilliant when it comes to media presentation and such (which makes working with them just perfect); not forgetting the countless people that help me out at events when there is something missing or needed... It's simply great to be working in eSports and I couldn't thank that community enough that they decided to have me!

Ultimately a thank you to you for the interview and of course to the great partners we have that make everything happen; SteelSeries, Komplett, EIZO, Telia, younited, Gunnar and AKRacing! Thanks a lot everone, and have a nice day ;)!

Picture credit: ESL, FragBite, YouTube.com/MrTweeday