Interview with Semmlertheriot

 Hey there Semmler, thanks for taking the time to talk to us today. Would you like to introduce yourself to people who may not be familiar with your work?

Semmler: Hey everyone, my name is Auguste "Semmler" Massonnat, and I'm a commentator for Bloodline Champions and StarCraft 2. Also, you may know me as Awkward man after my performance as host at Assembly winter 2k12 haha.

 

I personally know of you from checking out your Bloodline Champions casts and streams, so I was pretty surprised when I saw you getting more involved with StarCraft 2. What was your motivation for making a transition into SC2 casting in addition to BLC?

Semmler: It's a new challenge for myself. I started playing SC2 about a year ago, adding it to my rotation of games I obsessed over. BLC would take up a week of my time, and then I'd focus on Street Fighter, and SC2 found it's way in there, so that in the end I was playing it fairly regularly. I watched SC2 streams nightly, the big tourneys when I wasn't casting BLC, and even had the chance to hit the MLG Anaheim and NASL finals venues.

The opportunity came to move to Sweden to work with Apollo and James, and I saw it as the next step to improving my commentary, seeing as how BLC is a very high-paced game and SC2 gives the commentator a lot more room to work with. Apollo and I get along well, so it seemed like the natural thing to do.

 Aside from BLC and SC2, Semmler is also passionate about Street Fighter.

You most recently casted the 4th SCAN invitational alongside Team Dignitas’ own Apollo, how was that for you?

Semmler: Casting with Apollo is an interesting experience, seeing as how you're sitting next to this font of SC2 knowledge, that's just waiting for the right opportunity to melt peoples' minds, and it's up to you to provide the right questions to unleash the beast. If that made any sense, it comes back to the challenge of learning a completely new commentary style. I'm still doing play by play, but I'm not the analyst anymore, like I am in BLC, so how do you tie him in with the appropriate questions at the right time to enlighten the viewers?

I'm spending more time trying to build the story around the two players, seeing as how I have time to do that now. It's not just play by play and analysis that makes good commentary, but the ability to build a storyline that gets the viewer emotionally invested, and that's our biggest challenge right now. It's really been fun, each time we cast I learn something new and have a new goal set for the next tournament.

 

Now, you were previously living in the USA but now you have moved in with Apollo and 2GD in Sweden, how has life been there so far?

Semmler: It's been crazy, I mean, it's living the dream. I remember watching WoW tourneys and laughing at 2GD's jokes, and I'm living in the same house as him now, working on a project together with him, Apollo, and Trance. I never thought when I first picked up a mic for the Bloodline Champions GotKunju tourneys that this is where I'd wind up, working with some of the biggest names in the industry, living in Sweden of all places. It is worth moving across the world to wake up looking forwards to your job this much.

I owe a lot to James for bringing me on the team, and it's totally worth sleeping on a pallet in the studio for now, haha. I've been considering putting together a channel on youtube dedicated to the random stuff that happens in this house... work in progress there.

So as far as I understand, the core purpose of you guys living together was to start producing content for your new project called “the GD studio”. Can you let us know a little about what that is, and what we can expect from it?

Semmler: We'll be producing weekly content of the L2P kind for Quake, BLC, SC2, and DOTA2. Also, we'll be hosting a showmatch for each of these games once a month. We have some other plans in the works, but I can't go into the details regarding those... We're going to be setting the bar pretty damn high, with lots of whiskey.

 

Sounds good! Anyone who is familiar with yourself or 2GD knows well that you are not scared to speak your minds, should we be preparing for highly opinionated shows in keeping with the usual 2GD style?

Semmler: You can't account for what comes out of 2GD's mouth, the guy has no boundaries. And anyone who's watched my streams in the past, especially with my co-castor Kast, knows what kind of stupid stuff we can come up with after we've had a couple glasses of ambrosia.

We're not going to censor ourselves, we've always been one to speak our minds, and we won't be changing any of that for this project. I wonder how Apollo got mixed up with this sometimes, he's such a nice kid... Like, genuine nice. Hopefully he won't be to scarred when he comes out of this.

Hahaha, I hope you guys wont corrupt him too badly! 

Semmler: Hahaha, Apollo is nice, but he can hold his own when put to the task, I'm not too worried.

 

Expect uncensored esports coverage from the GD studio.

So what is next for you personally? do you have any other projects in the pipeline?

Semmler: For the time being we're focusing on the Studio and getting everything ready to launch that on time. I'm not sure about hosting yet, might have something coming up for that. I'd like to continue with the hosting, seeing as how it's something completely new and challenging.

Just drinking whiskey, laddering (and trying not break my keyboard) in SC2, laddering in BLC, and running after pretty swedish girls(I need to cut back on smoking, they're faster than I thought!). I might be working with Totalbiscuit in the near future regarding BLC, apparently the cynical brit wants a second crack at it, so that will be fun.

 

More BLC content is always good and having TB on board should be great! that should just about wrap it up, best of luck from all of us here with the launch of the studio. Do you have any final parting messages or shoutouts?

Semmler: Aye, thanks very much for the interview. Shoutouts to the BLC and SC2 communities for their badassery, to Harding for getting me over here, Apollo for his drive-by coaching, and Trance for his mob connections. Check out the hype video on youtube if you want more info about the studio, and Mr2's BLC Manly Bacon tourney is happening in 3 weeks as well, so check that out if you want some fast paced action.

 

If you want to check out the content from the GD studio you can do so via their twitch.tv channel. Don’t forget to check out Semmler’s own channel too for regular BLC content. To keep up with Semmler and news from the studio follow his Twitter. As always keep an eye on Team-Dignitas.org for new content and be sure to follow us on Twitter!