The artists we fall in love with are more than just their talent. These musicians, actors and pop culture icons most likely had to dodge many many hurdles while spending countless hours and energy in order to obtain their fame. To grasp a better understanding of a specific artist’s story, you must spend a vast amount of time dissecting past footage, interviews and articles.
Jake Zeeman, also known as ‘Soulr’ on YouTube, saves people the research, as he provides well-articulated mini-documentaries that focus on telling detailed stories of artists from all walks of life. For three years now, Jake’s widely watched video creations dissect a vast array of artists; from Robert Pattison, to Jean-Michel Basquait, to Travis Scott.
Casey Neistat’s editing style is what intrigued Jake to enhance his editing skills and begin posting YouTube content. He began by editing together random videos like travel vlogs and spray painting his penny board. Once Jake mastered his editing techniques, he steered his channel in a new direction, where he began documenting the stories and lives of different artists.
After reading an Elon Musk biography, Jake felt inclined to unleash the information he gathered by releasing his first YouTube mini-documentary on Musk back in 2018. “I was so gripped by the book that I wanted to give people the information I collected in the form of a video.” Once Jake released his first storytelling video, he proceeded to keep up with his momentum and has since been creating content. “I’m so impacted by certain artists, that I want to give a little bit back.”
A few videos after his Musk documentary, Jake released his Mac Demarco video, which attracted a lot of attention that he had not previously seen. Jake followed that momentum and shortly afterwards beautifully captured the story of Frank Ocean, an artist who is hard to fully understand for being quite media-shy.
Jake previously worked a sales job in San Francisco, but all he could think about was making more videos. “Even when my channel was nothing, I only cared about the videos.” Unsatisfied with his career, Jake took the risk and quit his day job to focus on YouTube channel full-time. “My philosophy is there is never a right time to pursue your dreams. You just go for it and find a way.”
Jake’s hard work paid off, as his channel exploded accumulating over 150k subscribers. Fans eagerly await his future drops, as his videos are flooded with valuable information. Jake spends weeks doing research on his chosen artist. He’ll watch every interview, read every article and study their art, to which he then types out pages of the information he collects. Jake consumes as much of the artists he can, “it’s actually the most fun part.” Afterwards, he’ll spend time organizing his thoughts, to which he’ll voiceover as a script and lay overtop of his exceptional edits and graphics.
Jake’s future plans for his channel include him shifting the style of his mini-documentaries to not only tell the story of his chosen artist, but ensure the video encapsulates a theme within its duration. “Now what I am trying to do is make it a little more interesting. So my most recent Keith Haring video, the constraint is the theme of childhood.” This way, Jake’s videos can serve more a purpose to teach followers a lesson about the theme, as well as educate them with the story of the artist.
Jake always pushes himself to go one step further, which you can observe through the evolution of his videos. His skills for storytelling, editing and creating content have come a long way since the start of his channel. Jake has no plans on stopping his content creation, “I have an excel sheet with endless artists written on it which I plan to do videos on eventually.” As well, subscribers can expect in-person interviews with artists once Covid restrictions are lifted.
Jake continuously pleases his subscribers, and it is easy to tell how much time, hard work and dedication goes into each of his stellar video documentaries. With a mind and motivation like Jake’s, we can only expect bigger and better projects from him in his future.
