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Kevin

Kevin

Real Name
Kevin Willingham
Affiliation
Contributions
Website


About[]

Kevin is the creator of RetroActive and started making videos while he was in college. He says the conception of RetroActive began when "my mother called me to tell me about this article she read about people making a living out of making review based and humorous videos on technology, toys and retro video games. Being an active retro gamer and a toy collector this concept was not something I wasn't aware of; at this point most of the heavy hitters on Youtube and GameTrailers had been around for a while. She apparently thought this would be a super easy thing for me to do even though I had no prior experience in video editing, no video camera and a bunch of other reasons that made the idea sound ridiculous. Well on a extra boring night in my apartment I decided to create a quick review video on a then popular Blackberry phone I had just upgraded to, I enjoyed it and got a nice response surprisingly. My real start though is when I had decided to make videos talking about Ghostbusters related stuff, and when I reviewed the Real Ghostbusters Game Boy game I started to make a shift in retro video games. Technically that first very amateur video was how RetroActive was born but it's real start was just a little while later when I made a video under the RetroActive title reviewing Kirby's Adventure. I used a digital camera on video mode, a cheap desktop mic, Roxio VideoWave to edit and no script."

When he's not making videos, Kevin works on his first passion: music. He says he currently "write(s) and record(s) my own solo work, play drums in a Ska band and work as a for hire percussionist and teacher. My solo work is probably described easiest as Folk-Punk with a Ska influence. As a Percussionist I got a bachelors degree in music performance and concentrate on world percussion such as Afro-Cuban or Middle Eastern."

Blistered Thumbs/TGWTG.com[]

The process for Kevin getting picked up started midway through 2012. He says he "originally talked to "Guru Larry" about seeing if he could help me get my foot in the door. Shortly after I officially left the site I was currently contributing to and began completely focusing on working with other friends and on my own website. Around winter I decided I needed to branch out more and decided to once again try for Blistered Thumbs. I contacted Austin Yorski and he enjoyed my work and the standard back and forth began between me, him and other people with Channel Awesome. Eventually he offered me the opportunity to post a video as a test run; that video got a good response and moved things forward."

RetroActive[]

RetroActive is Kevin's flagship show where he discusses classic and new video games, shedding a positive, informative light on them. It began in 2010 and so far has been featured on TGWTG, Blistered Thumbs, GameTrailers and ScrewAttack. Kevin also contributed to sites like Gamester81, The Geek Fighters and RetrowareTV prior to joining BT. The show was officially launched in December 2012 on BT and later TGWTG.

Links[]

Kevin on BT

Kevin on TGWTG

Kevin on Twitter

Kevin on YouTube


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