Whether it’s the trailer for a movie, the soundbite of a song from the biggest music star, or a clip from the next episode of your favorite tv show, maximizing the excitement you feel is an art that skilled professionals have crafted. Nikolay Gavrilov is a masterful conductor of this. As executive producer of introductory animation productions for some of the world’s largest E-gaming events, Gavrilov has manifested moments that possess as much awe inspiring visuals and thrills as big budget blockbuster films.
State of the art and at the apex of creativity, Nikolay and his team have created introductory videos that announce the commencement of E-sport events including the introductions of teams and players at the Epicenter Major Tournaments in 2018 and 2019. Epicenter is the largest cyber sports event in Russia with millions of viewers. Epic Sports Events enlisted Zheeshee production with Gavrilov at the helm to ensure a dynamic tone to be set for these massive gaming events.
The growth and importance of E-Sports is not to be taken lightly. When you consider that E-sports global market is valued at $957.5 million, the economic relevance of this industry comes into focus. The United States E-sports market is worth an estimated $243 million, currently the second-largest E-sports regional market. Gamers from across the planet have travelled to Moscow for the DOTA (Defense of the Ancients) tournament competing for a $1,000,000 prize package.
Organized by Epic E-sports Events, the grand kickoff to this tournament is introduced with a dazzling theatrical trailer style animated production from Zheeshee production (zheeshee.com). EP Nikolay Gavrilov and director Artem Shcherbakov spearhead this project to establish an awe-inspiring experience for attendees and online viewers. Four months of painstakingly precise creativity is boiled down to a little over five minutes of transfixing animation. With the level of production already quite high for modern visuals in gaming, Gavrilov’s team aspired to the creation of something that would leave even the most scrutinizing of gamers astonished.
Nikolay informs, “The coordination among team members and the continual communication with the client is all consuming but myself and my entire team felt that we could raise things to another level, and I feel that the excited response our films received testifies to this success. We knew we had to impress the gamers and that’s not easily done.” He continues, “We actually had three groups we wanted to impress: the client, the gamers, and our peers who would be watching. This was an opportunity to set a standard that future large E-sporting events would feel the need to match to be taken seriously, and we were more than happy to take on this challenge.”
The demands of conceptualizing and delivering an epic and inspiring opening to the show in order to attract the attention of the physical audience as well as the online audience is a fact of the future. There are those of us who will always want to be “there” in attendance but an increasingly expanding group prefers to be a part of the online crowd; the visual approach of productions like this will evolve with them. These recent Epicenter Major Tournaments reinforce the notion that imagination and skill similarly expands and establishes a high standard for any such events.
Writer: Jeffery Kallaher
Krishan Jangir