HOW ADVERSITY LEAD TO ZOKU CREATIVE
ZOKU Creative masters the power of storytelling by sharing the stories of those who would be considered as the black sheep of society.
Founder Tak Hatanaka has been through a lot of adversity; being raised by a single mother, losing one of his closest and dearest friends, followed by the passing of his mother and everything else in between. After acknowledging his own struggles, Tak realised the power in listening to those around him. He discovered that so many of us have overcome the hardest mental and physical challenges and share inspiring stories of freedom and hope for a better future and felt encouraged to share these stories. “These were really tough times for me and it took a toll on my physical and mental health. Even through these times, one thing that I always had on the back of my mind was that I knew there were people out there doing it worse” says Tak.
(Image Credit: Supplied by ZOKU creative)
Tak’s endeavours first started off as a joint business venture- Tak and his friend worked on launching their clothing brand, creating garments using a vinyl cutter and a heat press machine. Though life got in the way and those plans fell through, Tak decided to keep the name for his freelance marketing and creative work. The Japanese word ‘ZOKU’ translates to clan/family. At the time, Tak and his wife were starting their own family and it made sense to him to keep the name.
ZOKU’s stories are about people who have overcome different types of adversity such as experiences in prison, struggles with cancer, sexual abuse and mental health. What jump started ZOKU Stories was Tak’s highschool friend Joe. He had just come out of being in prison for nine years, when Tak “saw on Facebook that [Joe] had started his own fitness business modelled around ex-inmates. I knew this would be an awesome story so I reached out to see if he was interested in doing it on the ZOKU Creative Youtube channel. He was keen and the rest is history”.
We get to chat to Tak and ask him a few questions about his journey:
Describe your creative process?
“Every video has a different process. The ones we created at the start used a lot of b-roll, where lately we are focusing on interviews with short b-roll at the start of the video only. Once we have a guest locked in to speak, I think about where it’s going to be filmed, who’s going to help me on the project and then how it’s going to look.
Ideally, it’s great to have a big space to film so there’s more you can do visually, recently I’ve set up a studio at home where we’ve been able to film Nter and AJ’s video. I love the fact that we were able to execute these videos from a home studio.”
What are some challenges you faced working on ZOKU Creative?
“The 2 biggest challenges for me was finding the time to work on videos and the lack of skill that I have in videography. I work a full time job, and have a young daughter and wife that I want to spend time with. Then, there’s all the other social aspects of life such as eating out, gym, playing sports (not so much with COVID at the moment). A huge way I was able to overcome this was through the help of many people. I’m not the best at certain things and you can definitely speed up the process by getting external support.
I want to give a special shout out to a few of the people who've been a huge part of ZOKU so far: My beautiful wife, Liam, Phuong, Deniz, Tim, Herbert, Fabians and Marc D L.
I also have late nights and early mornings. I figured that you need to make some sacrifices to see results. It also helps if you love what you do. It’s not a burden to work overtime!”
(Image Credit: Supplied by ZOKU creative)
How do you find these stories?
“It started off through my own circle of friends then friends of friends and eventually, people started hitting me up on social media. I have also reached out to rappers such as Nter who I knew of their story through music.I like to keep my ears and eyes open on social media and youtube for good story opportunities.”
What characteristics do you think you had that helped you get this off the ground?
“1) People person - I love talking to people and hearing inspirational stories. I also enjoy the new relationships created through the collaboration on the channel.
2) Persistence -We know we have great stories, but with no paid budget we had to organically grow the audience. We knew that it would always take some time for the channel to grow but we just had to stay persistent! “
Any tips for any creatives out there?
“1) Work with other creatives to expand your knowledge
2) Be passionate about what you’re doing or else what’s the point in doing it in the first place? (Unless you making mad money lol)
3) Depending on your objective, stay persistent. The longer you put the time in to perfect your craft, the better it should get.
4) Don’t be afraid to invest in your business. Even if you don’t make money from it, spend money and learn from it.
5) Time is money. If you can get someone else to do something for a price you’re comfortable with, then do it!”
(Image Credit: Supplied by ZOKU creative)
Since January 2020, Zoku Creative has amassed over 4,000 subscribers on YouTube and over 573k views. Tak had recently released a three part series on the difference of being in lockdown and locked up. He asked inmates what the difference is and how it affected them. These inmates share tips to the community who may be struggling in lockdown as they share their experiences of what it’s like to be in prison.
You can view the trailer and Locked down series on ZOKU Creative’s Youtube channel.