20 Questions: Chess.com's Partnerships Manager
Aran Graham is a former Esports Producer and Director of Broadcast Operations at Chess.com. He is now their Partnerships Manager and works to spread chess with new audiences across the internet. Outside of his work at Chess.com, he has multiple YouTube channels including OBS with No BS, where he demystifies all things OBS, and Have You Seen? a movie reaction channel.
1. Favorite Color: Purple
2. Favorite Movie: Everything Everywhere All at Once
3. Favorite TV Show: Dragula
4. Favorite Musician: Ariana Grande
5. Favorite Food: Pasta of any kind
6. Favorite Chess Player: Mikhail Tal
7. Favorite Opening: Scandinavian, Queen’s Gambit, Hippo
8. Favorite Time Control: 30+0
9. Knights or Bishops: Knights
10. Hobby other than Chess: Making YouTube videos
11. What do you do at Chess.com?
Chess is booming right now. Because there is so much discourse surrounding it, we are seeing a lot of non-endemic content creators (meaning outside of the chess space) talking about chess on their platforms. At Chess.com, we realized that was an opportunity for growth that needed some attention.
As Partnerships Manager, I reach out to those non-endemic content creators and gauge their interest in engaging with chess in some way, whether it’s playing on stream or creating a piece of chess-themed content within their genre. Recently, we had a Minecraft speedrun YouTuber build a chess-themed speedrun map.
12. What is your favorite chess related memory?
Winning the most difficult rated game I’ve ever played during the North American Open in Las Vegas. It was my first rated over-the-board tournament. It was classical time control and was a grind of a game. We were evenly matched, and the position was very drawish. But I found a tactic at the last second, and this weird pawn move broke the position open, winning me the game. The best thing about that memory is my opponent enjoyed the game as much as I did, regardless of losing.
13. In the 2019 Pro Chess League finals, eye-tracking software was implemented into the production to increase the entertainment value. What kind of tech could we expect to be implemented into future live chess events to change the viewing experience?
Take AI, for example. How can we use AI to break the ceiling of what we know about chess and interpret it into an entertaining experience? Without entertainment value, experimenting with tech will seem like another research study.
Many years ago, I was approached by a couple of college engineers working on software that can measure a person’s heart rate purely through live camera footage. It’s watching their face and detecting visual biometrics to estimate a heart rate. Imagine, at any moment, you could zoom a camera onto a player at a top-level tournament and know their heart rate. We never ended up using it, but talk about the entertainment value brought through tech into chess!
14. You’ve produced multiple tournaments for Chess.com including PogChamps 3 and the 2021 FIDE World Chess Championships. What is the biggest challenge you and the production team faced putting on those events?
When putting together large influencer events like PogChamps, the biggest challenge we face is scheduling. We are working with many creators and celebrities beholden to other projects and sponsors, so finding a time that works best for all of them can be a challenge. We have actually had people need to leave before their match because others go into armageddon or delay the tournament. Sometimes we have a game played offline and then added back into the production later. It’s funny because we have our commentators do live commentary for those games, even without an audience.
The 2021 World Championship was one of the most technically challenging endeavors we have done to date. We shot that in Salt Lake City and built the set ourselves. Chess.com flew out two of our other producers, hired an audio engineer, and created a multi-camera environment. We were willing to risk scaling production bigger than ever before to see if it could be the future of broadcasting for Chess.com. I think we did that and followed it up with the CGC in Toronto, where we had a team of almost 20 technicians. In Madrid, for the Candidates, we had two teams. The English and Spanish team, so double everything we did in Salt Lake and ship it all to Madrid. Raising the bar is always our goal at Chess.com.
15. In other interviews you have discussed the dynamic between production and on-camera talent. Pull back the curtain for us. What happens during a broadcast from the perspective of a producer?
Up until now, from the technical side, most official broadcasts have been a one-person production company. You are running and building the scenes in OBS, capturing all the chess boards and webcams of commentators and participants, and putting everything people see and hear on screen. All the content is run and managed by that one person. At the same time, you are coaching and communicating with the commentators telling them when to change scenes or, “hey, say this when you want to change scenes, and it will be my verbal cue.” There is a saying in production: “Nobody notices a clean window.” If you are doing your job correctly, people don’t even know you exist because they are wrapped up in action. Everything a producer does during a broadcast is about that.
16. You now work to help chess content creators reach their goals. What is some general advice or resources you can give to help creators grow and flourish in this competitive world?
Be on multiple platforms. Share your content in more than one place. When you stream on Twitch, you only make money while live on stream. On YouTube, you are generating passive income. More than that, you will reach a wider audience. Also, make your workflow more efficient, so you can spend more time creating.
17. Any lesser known content creators/streamers you want to recommend for people to check out?
Let me give you a chess creator and a non-chess creator. In terms of a chess creator, KDLearns Chess. He is doing everything right in terms of becoming a chess content creator. Outside of chess, I think creators should pay attention to what is happening in the VTuber space with creators and companies like hololive or VShojo. VTubers are creators using real-time motion capture software and computer-generated avatars to create content. I think sometime in the near future, VTubers will gross more than all the other live genres combined. A couple of years ago, I told every chess creator to study Ludwig. Now, look where he is.
18. Do you have any dream brands you would love to partner with Chess.com?
I’ve always wanted to do something with Arizona Iced Tea. For a while, we were talking with their marketing team, trying to work something out. They are doing something called 99 Projects, where they fund interesting ideas and do mini-documentaries about the creators executing those concepts. I thought it would be great for them to follow along with a chess player working to earn a title.
19. You and your friend Carlos just started a movie reaction youtube channel, “Have you Seen?” What are three movies you think everyone should see and why?
1) 2001: A Space Odyssey because it’s an art piece on humanity as a whole.
2) Everything Everywhere All at Once because it takes the banality of life and pushes it to the farthest reaches of existentialism.
3) Apocalypse Now because it shows the horrors of war and the worst of humanity. It pairs well with 2001’s optimistic portrayal of human potential.
20. Beyond making a living off of chess, how has it impacted you as a person?
There two things I'd like to highlight. The simpler is more impulse control and the ability to slow down when making big choices. More importantly, I’ve been able to travel because of chess which I wouldn’t have been able to afford on my own. I’ve gone to tournaments all over the world and been to multiple countries along the way. While traveling, you grow so quickly as a person when you are in another place with different beliefs, customs, and languages and have to function. It’s very humbling and has brought the most value to my life.
Some responses have been abbreviated for brevity and clarity.
