Zach King

Zach King is an American Vine star, filmmaker and YouTube personality based in Los Angeles. He is most known for his "magic vines" - six-second videos digitally edited to look 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. King won the Hewlett-Packard commercial contest in 2010, and got a trip to the red carpet at the London Film Festival. In 2013, he won YouTube's NextUp Creators contest. King and his wife Rachel Holm competed in the 28th season of American reality game show The Amazing Race. They were eliminated during the ninth leg of the race being placed sixth in the overall standings. King was born and raised in Portland, Oregon. He is of half Chinese descent from his paternal side, one quarter Austrian and one quarter Nicaraguan descent from his maternal side.King 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. King started his website, FinalCutKing 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 an episode of Viral Video Showdown that aired on Syfy in 2012. 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 Next Up 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 ground fire as he pleaded his case to be selected for the YouTube award.