37: From Depression to Passion, Winning a Film Festival, & 1.4 Million Followers // The Story of Zac Stracener

Zac Stracener is a popular social media personality who gained his popularity for his videos with the theme of mental illness and anxiety. His TikTok account, Zac.Stracener, has over 1.4 million followers. One of his most well-known TikTok videos, which has the song “Overwhelmed” by Royal & the Serpent, earned more than 2 million views.

Creating striking and poignant vignettes on TikTok, Zac has also proven himself with award-winning short films as well as engaging commercial pieces. Bringing magnitudes of creative insight, he has given himself a name in content creation as well as artistic vision in cinema. Zac lives in Los Angeles, California where he creates weekly videos for social media along with working on Films.

Time-Stamped Show Notes:

• 4:30 As a filmmaker, Zac is a huge advocate for movie theaters. He believes that most movies will benefit from being shown in theaters but this will not last forever.
• 8:52 Zac shares the story of how he got into sharing videos on Tiktok.
• 10:04 Making the video about mental health was a way for Zac to cope and escape during the early days of the pandemic.
• 15:30 With his videos, Zac hopes that people struggling with mental health can seek groups or communities that will understand them.
• 17:12 In his younger years, Zac got really sick and couldn’t go to school. He was also involved in a very serious bus accident that could have killed all the passengers.
• 21:41 During college, his rock bottom moment came when he wasn’t sure what to do with his life, he was failing college, and he was heartbroken.
• 27:16 His childhood dream was to be successful on YouTube and other social media sites.
• 29:38 Eric talks about the topic of doing what’s best for you. You are the only person who knows what is truly best for you.
• 31:46 Shooting his first short film was a very monumental moment for Zac.
• 35:53 The concept of job versus passion is brought up by Eric.
• 39:17 In one of the film festivals that he joined, Zac’s film was pulled out because a judge did not like his entry. This incident led him to produce a very successful short film and his viral TikTok clip.
• 48:12 When it comes to cyberbullying or mental health issues, Zac thinks that having a friend who can understand and listen can be very helpful.
• 50:35 A classmate from Eric’s elementary days emailed him, which made him so emotional that he almost cried.
• 52:48 Keep going and keep moving is the best advice that Zac could give to himself during his rock bottom moments.
• 55:26 Zac provides all the information on where you could find him.

This Episode Brought to You By:

• 28:27 The Man, the Myth, the Canadian Legend: Eric Gilbert-Williams. Eric put together this very podcast as a passion project to help you & others. If you’d be so kind to Subscribe & Leave a Written Review of the show, it’d really make our day! You can Subscribe & Rate our Podcast right here: From Rock Bottom to Rockin’ It..

Key Points from the Interview:

• “I hope that people that struggle with it will see my work and will seek, maybe not help necessarily but just seek communities, start talking to people. Maybe they send it to a friend, maybe they send it to family member and the next part of that is I hope that someone that sees my work that doesn’t understand will try to understand. And try to find the people they know that do understand it and try to have a conversation and to try to just help be better as a society in general.”
• “I’ll look in the mirror and I’ll to just remember that time, and it’s so hard to, but I can just remember just someone that was scared, someone that has no idea where he was going, really didn’t know what he was doing with the camera too. And now I look at myself and I’m like, I’m nowhere near where I want to be and where I’m going to be, and I think we’re always growing everyday. We should be, striving to keep building up. We never really arrive but at least we’re moving forward. As long as you’re moving right, just keep moving.”

Resources Mentioned:

• Instagram: @zacstracener
• TikTok: @zac.stracener
• YouTube: Zac Stracener
• IMDB.com: Zac Stracener Filmography
• ZacStracener.com
• Baker Grace – I Feel For You (Directed by Zac Stracener)
• Zac Stracener on Twitch.TV