I had the pleasure of talking to Jonathan Thompson, who you might know from his fantastic YouTube channel "Scanline City". The channel currently revolved around arcade sticks and I think it is an excellent resource for those who love to play and collect sticks.
Jonathan is very active in other areas of retro gaming as well, you may have seen his project to create high quality metal/perspex cases for classic arcade boards like the Mortal Kombat series or his efforts to build an authentic recreation of the classic "MAS" American arcade stick.
In another life Jonathan is a award winning film maker, working on his own short and feature length movies and documentaries. This certainly goes a long way to explaining the insanely high production value of his Scanline City videos.
I was fascinated by his story. He seems to do A LOT of things and does them really well, with thought and craftsmanship. His arcade stick videos, the MK arcade boards or the new MAS recreation stick, all of them are really quality products which demonstrate he is really paying attention. How the hell does this guy find the time, effort and creativity to do all of this along with being creative head for his own video production company?
We talk about his childhood and how this led him to the path he is on today. I enjoyed talking to Jonathan and connecting over our roles running creative organizations. In my day job I manage a group of comedians, trying to forward their careers and produce great projects together. After years of work, I am in a place to take some perspective on the big picture and provide creative and business direction. It sounds like Jonathan is in a similar place with his production company and I enjoyed talking to him about it.
00:00 Start
04:50 How do you manage the work / hobby balance?
10:11 The YouTube algorithm controls us all
17:22 What are your first memories of video games?
20:37 Did you grow up in a creative family?
41:14 Starting the Scanline City channel
50:27 Creating arcade PCB covers
59:50 MAS arcade sticks
01:18:50 Modding sticks
01:21:15 His impressive arcade stick collection
Follow Scanline City on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/ScanlineCity
You might like some of the other things I do too
Comedy Guy Podcast: https://anchor.fm/comedyguy
Zez Retro Podcast: https://anchor.fm/zezretro
Twitter: https://twitter.com/louiszezeran
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/louiszezeran
Zez Retro on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/ZezRetro
Retro Shmups on Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/louiszezeran
