American filmmaker and internet celeb, Zach King, used his charm and mastery of deception to build
a worldwide following of loyal fans. Originally having found fame on Vine, this master of magic
is constantly reinventing himself. From kittens to kids' books, we're pulling
the truth about this star out of the hat. Zach King's upbringing was magical in its
own right. Born in Oregon, he represents a diverse set of cultures. As he explained to the Guardian,
"I'm half Chinese, my dad is full Chinese, and I'm a quarter Nicaraguan and a quarter
Austrian from my mother's side. I'm a global mix."
"I've always loved filmmaking since I was 7 years old."
While he and his three younger sisters were homeschooled by their parents,
the turning point in King's trajectory likely came around his eighth birthday,
when his parents gifted him a video camera. He recalled,
"I fell in love with it. […] What I loved was how
you could get a group of people to feel an emotion together."
"I wanna welcome you to my personal lair. Also known as my dorm room."
As a senior at Biola University majoring in film and music with a minor in worship,
King looked to one of his favorite directors, George Lucas,
as inspiration to make a short clip based on Star Wars. He explained to The Chimes,
"My buddy Aaron and I were hanging out at his house with his new kittens that he had adopted
[and] we started talking about cool cat viral videos. […] I
thought it would be sweet to see cats fighting with lightsabers."
King's "Jedi Kittens" video amassed more than a
million views on YouTube in its first three days. He admitted,
"Of course kittens and Star Wars will make for a popular video
but I didn't expect a couple million views so quickly."
And just like the actual Star Wars franchise, King set out to make an even more spectacular sequel.
His follow-up "Jedi Kittens Strike Back" more than tripled the original in length,
and in just three weeks after release, earned over three million views, according to The Chimes.
During a sit-down with Red Bull, King was asked
whether he considered himself to be a magician. He laughed and replied,
"No, but I get that question all of the time. […] At the core I would call myself a filmmaker."
"Ah! A magician, eh?"
"Well, I dabble on the weekends."
"I too have been known to dabble."
King recalled wanting to be a magician when he was a kid,
admitting that he attended various magic conferences and shows, adding,
"I did magic with my grandpa from age 8 through early high school years. […] I was always a little
prankster and mischievous, so I like magic because that's really the best way to do it. […] I saw a
lot of [people doing] stop-motion and magic, but there was never a great story. That's what
I wanted to add back in, the story element." It appears that if King had to whittle down his
life's possessions into one essential item he just couldn't live without,
he would have to go with his Lego bricks. He told The Orange County Register,
"That's something I go to every day,
partly for creative inspiration but also as a way to get my energy out for 10 minutes."
"I'm kind of a freak when it comes to Legos and collecting them. I've been
collecting for years and years."
Sure enough, King even found a way to incorporate his favorite
building blocks into his professional environment. He revealed to Red Bull,
"If you come to the office, we have toys everywhere,
we even have Legos and train sets, [to] just continue to build stuff.
[The] idea is to keep those younger ideas in our head naturally."
"I think what I enjoy about it is actually going through the manual and being told what to do."
The brand must have caught wind of this star's love of Lego,
tapping King to direct a web commercial for the brand's Ninjago series.
The filmmaker explained to PR Week exactly why he collaborates with family-friendly brands, saying,
"When I hear brand names like Lego, Disney, Crayola — I immediately think about how I
played with those as a kid and try to figure out how to make something with them. […] It has
to be a product I'm already excited about, I have, I use, or I am passionate about."
Despite starring in essentially all of his many videos, King still considers his
acting a work in progress. He got honest during a chat with Red Bull, admitting,
"People always tell me I suck. I’m not an actor at all, I just put myself in front of the camera
to brand the videos. It’s funny a lot of people think I’m an actor, and a terrible one at that."
"Audiences today really love the flashy tricks."
Still, fans don't really seem to mind! The star considers himself primarily a
filmmaker and aspires to create features one day. He said of his future subject matter,
"I have a feeling it will have to do with animals.
The mystery of 'what if' […] will always be a theme of our films.
[And] a little bit of sci-fi or fantasy because we do like the visual flair elements in movies."
As of 2021, King has yet to debut an original feature film,
but he did act in a hit movie about animals, voicing a wolf in Zootopia.
Before King's hilarious cat videos took over the internet, the star had already found a degree
of online success. He launched his website, FinalCutKing.com, in 2008 as a way to offer
tutorials on using the editing software Final Cut Pro. With that, he also started a YouTube channel.
"It's what first kind of got me into filmmaking, when I saw you could put clips together
and tell a story with different angles, and it's really fun."
Although the content King first produced wasn't exactly riveting, he was able to
host training seminars as a source of income while going to college. He told The Chimes,
"I had no idea what I was really getting myself into. […] I decided
to fill that need and post free tutorials online."
A couple years later, King decided to experiment. After his video involving a fake "hologram
setting" on the Apple iPad 2 went viral, he created more special-effects focused content —
like his "Contest Entry Gone Wrong" video, which he submitted to YouTube's NextUp creator contest.
"This is my submission video for the YouTube NextUp program...What the heck?"
The clip earned King the coveted $35,000 top prize.
Remember Vine? When the platform launched in 2013,
it brought with it an entirely new type of storytelling; all within 6-second
clips. King jumped into the craze in order to kickstart his personal brand, telling Forbes,
"When I first heard about Vine, and the 6 second videos, and saw the creators with 20
million followers, I thought, 'This is easy. Step aside guys.' But I quickly realized that it's the
story aspect that makes videos successful. It still needs a beginning, a middle and an end."
"I post my first Vine, it gets 100,000 re-Vines.
I'm still trying to figure out what the heck is a re-Vine."
King elaborated on the dismal fate of a typical content creator, telling Mashable,
"They create an account and expect to publish their own personal content, but after realizing
it's not as easy as they thought to film something interesting, they give up and become a consumer."
Though the site ultimately met its demise in 2016, King and a host of
other Vine stars were just getting started. While many creators jumped over to YouTube,
King had already built a following on the platform. He told The Chimes way back in 2011,
"I love YouTube and right now it's my full time job. Most people are confused when I
tell them that I create videos for YouTube for a job but it's such a valuable experience."
Although King won YouTube's NextUp Creators contest that year, he ultimately found
more of his viewers outside of the video sharing platform. He told Forbes in 2020,
"It's funny that my smallest following is on YouTube, which is where I started."
King's popularity skyrocketed through his use of Vine, Instagram, and TikTok.
However, the star claims that out of all the platforms,
YouTube is the biggest champion of its creators. For that reason, he said,
"I think I'll always call myself a YouTuber."
"Thanks for joining me on the journey." In 2015, King and his wife Rachel sent in
an audition tape for The Amazing Race. The couple explained in their submission that
the experience would be their last big adventure before they started a family.
"We wanna have a big family, both biological and through adoption."
"And this is kind our last, like, big trip."
Producers ended up loving the couple and the Kings appeared on Season 28
of the hit reality show. The two trained and played admirably but
were eliminated midway through the season. King recalled to The Loop,
"It was gruelling. At that point we were like,
'What did we sign up for?' It's not just physical but mental as well."
Looking back on the adventure of a lifetime, King confessed his fears before filming, telling CBS,
"We were nervous going into it because we've seen enough seasons to know that this puts a
serious stress on relationships and we've seen a lot of couples fight and argue. [But it]
brought our communication to the next level and helped us get to know each other even better."
"The millions of people that watch my videos know me as a magician,
but to two little humans, I'm known as Dad." In addition to creating buzzy content for multiple
platforms, King is focusing on his family. The star revealed to The Orange County Register in
2016 that, for him, it's, quote, "the more the merrier" when it comes to kids. He said,
"I want to have six kids eventually,
and my wife and I, we're fostering one kiddo now as a way to kind of start growing that."
The couple welcomed their first biological son Liam in 2018 and,
of course, King shared the news with a touch of magic, on Instagram. The following year,
King posted a heartwarming video detailing the adoption story of his oldest son, Mason.
"Mason is officially adopted! [Cheers]"
Of course, the proud papa loves to share his favorite hobbies with his kids, telling The Hindu,
"I love doing the most basic magic tricks for them, watching them freak out. After all,
that's where the magic all began." Clearly, King has mastered just about every
form of social media using his video wizardry. And when fans see him in person, many ask to see
a live magic trick. While he typically shies away from revealing his filming process, it was from
those types of interactions that King committed to giving fans the backstories for his characters.
"Ok. This is all I need. Are you ready? This is my brand new book. And it's magical."
In 2017, King released his first children's book, My Magical Life. The debut was part
of a three-book deal, which later included the follow-ups The Magical Mix-Up and Mirror Magic.
Of course, the series also features a virtual component that truly pops the story off the page.
King's literary effort was such a success, according to Variety,
that Amblin Entertainment optioned the feature film rights to My Magical Life.
While life as a social media star may seem enviable, consistently pushing out clever
and captivating content can be tough to sustain over a long period of time.
King explained that his inspiration comes from the world around him, as well as personal experiences.
As he told People, for example, he used to have an irrational fear of eggs, explaining,
"I always thought when I made scrambled eggs, and I popped the egg, I'd find a dead baby chicken."
Other ideas revolve around common dreams and wishes,
like the desire to create money out of thin air. As King explained to Red Bull,
"They are all things myself and the team have thought about, and wished they could be real."
"…Works every time." It's no surprise that King's blend
of humor, special effects, and storytelling turned this filmmaker into a bona fide
star. In addition to his massive online following and ad revenue,
King has also collaborated with the biggest brand names in the world. He told PR Week in 2016,
"I work with Coca-Cola, Disney, Pixar, and colorful brands like Crayola. We are about kids,
inspiration, creativity, and color. Those are the partnerships that excite me."
With income streams from YouTube monetization,
brand partnerships, and royalties from his children's book series, King's stack of
money continues to grow taller. As of 2020, he was worth an estimated 3 million bucks.
"I would save for my future kids' college funds. I would
invest in a home. I would do all the adult things that I hate doing."
But despite his big bank account, King doesn't seem to flaunt his wealth. Perhaps that's because,
as a kid, he had to be clever with his cash. As a once-aspiring magician, he recalled to Esquire,
"I never really had the money to buy the tricks,
so I had to think about how I could reverse engineer them."
When he couldn't afford a $75 official magic pen, King figured out how to build
one — and that's the exact ingenuity that has transformed him into a star.
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