Zach King of Vine: 6-second tricks and illusions show the magic of 'digital sleight of hand'

In the world of six-second Vine videos, the art of capturing an audience’s attention is vital – and few are better at it than Zach King.

The Los Angeles-based filmmaker has only been using the app (a Twitter-owned service which lets users create and share short, editable videos) for four months but has already created some of the most memorable ‘quick cut’ style videos around.

King calls his videos “digital sleight of hand”, with his lightning-fast editing allowing him to jump through car doors, turn ping pong balls into fried eggs and – in a video that fulfils the dreams of more than a few internet users – grab kittens straight out of the internet.

Although his videos are often referred to as magic, King isn’t so keen on the term:

“Vine is all about creativity to me,” he told The Independent. “I love real life magic and highly respect magicians, but it's funny when people relate my work to magic because I don't do the tricks for real.”

As well as Vines, King is also a prolific YouTube user – part of a generation of home-grown talents who have used the video-sharing site to show off their prowess with editing and special effects. He's also got a viral pedigree - his first big hit was way back in 2011 with a video that edited together cats and lightsabres to rake in more than 5 million views.

King says he’s making enough money from these digital avenues to live on, working sponsorship deals with brands into his content to fund his work. However, he's also got his eye on material that is slightly longer than six seconds in the future.

“Someday I would love to direct feature films – action-adventure titles would be the dream genre to produce. But I'm loving being an online content creator right now and I have a large audience so I want to keep creating content for them.”

The video compilation above shows off King's best work (courtesy of YouTube user FarlyTeem) but he says his favourite creation are his bedtime routine video (above) and the real goldfish trick (below). He also offered the following advice for would-be Viners:

“Here's the secret to a great Vine - a great idea. Before I post a Vine, usually I can guess if it will do really well and the audience will enjoy and share it. But the pattern I have seen from the other great Viners is that the best ideas will be the home run vines!”