We’re often asked about what we do at SEGA, and how to get a job here. Most people assume that we are all game programmers, or that you have to be a game programmer in order to work here. But that’s very far from the truth — there are many different types of jobs here.

I read a comment on one of our videos recently that they feel like the community team are the only ones that work at SEGA, because we’re the only people they ever see. And that really broke my heart, because we have so many great people who do incredible work… but it’s not something that you guys get to see, or something they’ll stand on camera and do an interview about.

In the past few years, we’ve made it a point to highlight our co-workers whenever possible. You might have seen some of our candid photos from shows like E3 or PAX, or been introduced to people when they’ve made guest appearances on our Free Stuff Friday videos. But this year, we’ve decided to take it a step further. Each month, we’ll be featuring one employee so you can get to know the different types of jobs here, and the different people doing them. These are the people working behind the scenes here at SEGA to, ultimately, make awesome stuff for you guys.

This month, we’re featuring Greg Ammen, who works in our media lab as a Video Editor. If you’ve seen any of our trailers, chances are very good that he worked on it. When we do let him out of the comfort of his ultra air conditioned media lab, he sometimes goes nuts and wields chainsaws at bloody nurses, like he did at our Rise of Nightmares event last year.

Tell us about yourself!
I was born in San Francisco, CA and was raised on just the other side of the hill from where the SEGA of America offices are located now. I graduated from Ex’pression College of Digital Arts with a Bachelor in Sound Engineering. After graduation, I worked for Hoff Productions, working  on several shows for the National Geographic Channel and Discovery Channel.

How long have you worked for SEGA, and why did you want to work here? 
I have been working at SEGA as a video editor for 4 years this February. I saw an ad on Craigslist for a video editor opportunity at an unlisted video game company, which turned out to be SEGA. The job grabbed my attention because, even though I came from an audio recording background, I was interested in editing video.

Tell us about your job – what do you do all day?
My day-to-day duties include assembling footage for ESRB submissions to get the rating on a game, creating trailers for use on the web, and capturing footage for use in trailers. I even get to put my audio background to use every once in a while when we need to record voice overs. When people find out that I work at SEGA they often remark that I must get paid to play videogames, I always joke that they don’t pay me to play games but they do pay me to watch others play while I capture the footage.

What’s your favorite thing about working at SEGA? 
The greatest thing about working at SEGA is being part of creative community of people at a company that has such a deeply rooted history in video games. I often have to step back and take it in that I now work at a company that helped to shape my youth with Sonic the Hedgehog, Jet Set Radio Future, Crazy Taxi etc.

What’s something about SEGA that you didn’t expect when you started working here?
I didn’t expect how much like being part of a family it is to work here. This is by far the largest company that I have ever worked for yet I feel like I know each and every person as a colleague and a friend.

What’s your favorite SEGA game or franchise?
My favorite SEGA game is definitely Sonic Generations. The team really did a great job of making the game similar in gameplay to older versions of Sonic games of my youth yet brought great new elements to it for the modern era.

What other games are you into? 
I am a huge fan of the Halo series in fact I am currently playing Halo Anniversary and really enjoying switching back and forth between the old and new graphics.

What superpower would you most like to have, and why?
If I had a superpower it would definitely have to be the ability to fly, and fly fast. Could you imagine traveling and never having to deal with TSA, delayed flights, and cramped planes? I know I should think of something grander but I’m a simple guy and would settle with the ability to get off work on a Friday and immediately fly off to Italy for the weekend.

How you do to help keep SEGA weird?
I help to keep SEGA weird by helping out with office pranks. My favorite one was when we filled our Creative Manager’s cubicle with pages and pages of crumpled up back issues of magazines we had around.  I’d guess we used at least 200 magazines. (Don’t worry, it was all recycled.)

What else would you like to share with SEGA fans? 
I’d like to let the SEGA fans know that every one of us at this company works very hard to give you fun, entertaining games. I am in the unique position to see almost every game that we release due to the fact that I handle the video capture of the ESRB submission process. I can tell you that whether it’s the product manager, production development, sales or even finance and legal person who comes in to play the game they are always extremely passionate about our products. In turn, I love seeing how passionate you, as fans, are about SEGA. Our community is loud and proud, and certainly doesn’t hesitate to let us know what they’re thinking.