Zach King

**Zach King** (born February 4, 1990) is an American Instagram star, film-maker and YouTube personality born February 4, 1990 and based now in Los Angeles. He is most known for his "magic vines" - six-second videos digitally edited to show as if he is doing magic. He calls his videos "digital sleight of hand". He began posting videos on YouTube in 2008 and in 2013, he started posting videos to Vine. He will soon compete in the competition show, "The Amazing Race," along with other internet stars, for season 28 of the show.

In 2010, he won first place in a Hewlett-Packard commercial contest and got a trip to the red carpet at the London Film Festival. In 2013, he won YouTube's *NextUp Creators contest*.

## Early life and education

King was born and raised in Portland, Oregon. He made his first film when he was seven using a home video camera. When he was fourteen, he purchased video equipment including a Mac computer, cameras as well as a tripod and started making and editing videos. He graduated from Biola University with a Cinema and Media Arts Major in December 2012.

## Career

King started his website, FinalCutKing.com in 2008, to offer training and tips about using the editing software Final Cut Pro as he was unable to find tutorials for the software on the Internet. At the same time, he started using his YouTube channel to give tutorials for visual effects using the Software. After gaining an audience for his website, he began selling training seminars and used the money to pay for his college. He participated as a contestant on Viral Video Show that aired on Syfy in 2012. Named "Viral Video Showdown"

### YouTube

In 2011, he posted a video titled *Jedi Kittens* on YouTube that he produced with a college friend. The video showed two cats fighting with lightsabers. The video gained over a million views in three days and went on to have over 14 million views. A sequel of the video titled *Jedi Kittens Strike Back* gained over 17 million views. A third part of the video, *Jedi Kittens with Force* was posted in 2014. King's official YouTube channel is FinalCutKing.

He was named by YouTube as one of the 25 most promising young film-makers in America in May 2013. As part of its *NextUp Creators contest*, YouTube awarded King $35,000 as well as a trip to New York City for a four-day YouTube Creator Camp. His submission to the contest was titled *Contest Entry Gone Wrong*. In the video, he appeared to dodge an assault by airstrikes and groundfire as he pleaded his case to be selected for the YouTube award.

### Vines

King made his account on Vine in September 2013, when he saw that many of his friends had an account on the social media website. After creating an account on Vine, he decided to create one Vine each day for the next thirty days. After the success of his first few Vines, he decided to continue with creating and posting new Vines.

He appeared on The Ellen DeGeneres Show in January 2014 and made several Vines with the crew of the show. As of 2014, King creates Vine videos for a living and works out of his garage. In an interview with The Independent, he said that he would want to direct feature films, preferably action-adventure movies, in the future.

King has been featured in multiple media outlets for his Vines. Chez Pazienza wrote about King that "this guy’s stuff is pure magic (or at least the work of some very clever editing.)" Laura Vitto wrote of his work Mashable, "Vine star and filmmaker Zach King may not perform magic in the traditional sense, but his expertly-edited six-second videos could put David Blaine to shame."

Writing for Complex magazine, J. Duaine Hahn wrote that "While people have hit Vine stardom for skits, or splicing together commentary with popular YouTube videos, King has gone the extra mile to use his six seconds to create magic, or the closest thing you can get to it with on a smartphone." In 2014, Rudimental asked King to create a Vine for them.

In an interview, Zach said that producing a vine usually takes upwards of 24 hours, with 3 to 4 hours of filming.

## Awards and honors

* 2009 – First Place London Film Festival for HP advertisement
* 2009 – Critic's Choice Award at Bridgestone Tires's Safety Scholars Teen Driver Video Contest.
* 2010 – First place London Film Festival: Heartbrand Ad
* 2010 – Bridgestone Safety Scholar Winner
* 2012 – Vidcon Golden Poop Award
* 2013 – YouTube's NextUp Creators Contest