Sean Seanson Q&A: Creating Retro Videos, PlayStation Music Mixes, and more on YouTube
From how he creates these fantastic videos to his future plans.
I'm almost embarrassed to admit how many YouTube videos from Sean Seanson's channel I've watched in just one week.
I discovered his channel in 2023 while searching for music compilations from games on the Sony PlayStation and SEGA Mega Drive (Genesis) consoles. As soon as I started playing his 'Mix No.1' video, I was sold. As an aside, I usually have these mixes playing when I need to leave my dog, Jolly, so I can do some errands. He's also a fan. At least I'm sure of it anyway.
Seanson recently published an in-depth video about every single CAPCOM game released during the original PlayStation era. I've watched it three times since he re-uploaded it to fix some issues that only he noticed. In fairness, I would have done the same.
After watching even more of his videos, I reached out to Seanson to learn more about his YouTube channel, how he creates these fantastic videos, and his plans.
What made you create a YouTube channel to start with?
I'm part of the wave of 'Pandemic Tubers', which is a weird way of saying I suddenly found myself with a lot of time on my hands, so I needed a project to help keep me occupied and sane. I always had a feeling in the back of my mind that I could make an honest attempt at a gaming YouTube channel, but never really knew what I wanted to focus on, and more importantly the daily grind of work usually just left me too tired to pursue other hobbies or projects, so the pandemic as awful as it was, was a unique opportunity to finally give it my full attention.
Unusually, I decided to challenge myself to make a three-hour video on my first attempt (you should not do this, btw) and kind of fell in love with the process. I fully expected to give up after a video or two and move on with my life, but somehow, I'm still doing this over 4 years later.
What’s the favourite video you’ve made so far?
I'm very proud of my longer developer specials, but my favourite is one of my older videos on a game called Pandemonium 2. It was the first video where I just abandoned any preconceived notions on what I expected a YouTube video to be and just did whatever I thought would be cool. It's a bit rough around the edges, as to be expected from an early video, but it's the video that made me confident to experiment and do my own thing regarding editing, flow, audio, etc. I'll always have a soft spot for that video because of it. That, and the game is really bizarre, so it's a fun video to look at!
How on earth do you plan a video as long as the CAPCOM video? How long did it take from start to publication? How has it felt to receive so much great feedback from it so far?
The video took roughly 4 months to make, and that's putting in at least an hour or two each day to capture footage, create the transitions, write the script, record and edit the audio, and then slap it all together in Vegas, but the planning for it has been going on for months prior, which is mostly just building a list of games and double checking it to make sure I didn't miss anything. Surprisingly, the internet doesn't document complete developer-based lists as well as you'd hope, and the obvious websites like Wikipedia, GameFAQs, etc., are often missing numerous games, so you have to do some digging to find the more obscure entries and odd Japan-published titles such as UFC/ONE, etc. Once you've got your list and checked it twice, Santa style, you just have to do everything piece by piece and trust the process.
Videos like this often exist as a jumbled mess for a large portion of the process until you eventually start piecing it together in the edit, hundreds of hours of footage, over a hundred pages of words, it can be a lot to keep track of, but I always have a rough vision of the end product in my head so I try to keep that as the focal point even when it can get a bit overwhelming.
This video was particularly challenging because I knew it was going to be long (I didn't expect 6+ hours, but hey, trust the process), and with a company as storied as Capcom, there are so many interesting little stories you can tell along the way, but you also just don't want to be fact-dumping at every opportunity.
I hoped to make a video that could be watched in one sitting or in 80 mini-sittings if you like, and at least by my own standards, I think I managed to succeed. The positive feedback has been wonderful to see and hear. Some people probably think I'm crazy for making a video like this, but I partly do these just to challenge myself and create videos I'd personally love to see, but realistically, knowing that other people get something out of it, whether from an entertainment or information standpoint, makes the work/planning worth it.
How do certain tracks help make the cut for the Club Mixes? Any favourite Mixes out there of the 9 so far?
My two loves in life are music and gaming, and the early CD era of gaming, particularly with the PlayStation, and that intersection of the Club/Dance scenes is part of the reason why I focus on the console and its library. Some of the best video game OSTs ever made are littered throughout its library, and when you think of the incredible number of games in there (roughly over 4,500), you have to think there's some incredible music hidden in there somewhere, right? Well, turns out digging through PlayStation game soundtracks and also playing games for a YouTube channel introduces you to some incredible pieces of music on the regular, so I figured, why not combine them into mixes for other people to enjoy?
I have a big folder and spreadsheet of tracks I enjoy and I try to showcase a nice mixture of different styles in each mixture, it's very easy to fill each mix with high-tempo, high-energy tracks but I like to showcase other genres too when I can, there are some great trip-hop, ambient, IDM and experimental tracks littered throughout these games and I'd like to create mixes that not only showcase the depth of the music appearing on these games but also one that highlights my own musical taste as well.
As for my favourite mix, I enjoy each for different reasons, but I think No.2 is the one I spent the most time carefully curating, and it's the one that flows the best. If I ever had to play a mix live for an event, it would probably be that one or at least a variation of that one.
Any hints about the next video/audio? I have a cheeky request for the Skidoo track from Tomb Raider 2...
Ah, good choice. I've had that sitting as a potential track for some time, so I'm sure it can find its way into a mix soon. As for the next video plans, I'll be taking a short rest to play some video games that aren't on the PS1 for a little while, a rarity these days! I'll probably move back into my usual rotation of highlighting obscure/Japan-only games for a bit, which are almost like a relaxing alternative to these bigger videos nowadays.
The obvious candidate for the next developer video is Konami, but I think the list of games for that is pushing almost 200, which is an insane number... so whatever 'big' video I do next will probably be a little smaller in scale. What is that? I'm not quite sure, but when I know, I know 😄
You can find Seanson on YouTube, obviously, but he also has a Linktree, which includes all of his links, including a Patreon.
Thanks for reading.
