Today we’d like to introduce you to Jenny Lek.
Hi Jenny, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
My name is Jenny Lek. I’ve been a video editor since I was 12 years old in 2013. At that time, little did I know that video editing would be passion and future career. In middle school, it was the trend to make video edits with your friends. The app Video Star was very popular at the time. I would film videos on an iPad of myself and also with my friends. I would bring the iPad around my house and in the outdoors for video locations. Then, I would edit these videos with interesting, vibrant effects. I started taking editing more seriously at the end of middle school. I even quit gymnastics to pursue my main hobby of video editing. I was obsessed with watching these teenage shows like Teen Wolf and The Vampire Diaries, so I began to make fan edits of these shows. My parents helped me upgrade the Video Star iPad to the Final Cut Pro MacBook. The upgrade was quite the change. My first MacBook laptop was life changing, even with its 4GB of ram. I could edit a lot faster and my videos started looking more refined. I would watch hours of editing tutorials on YouTube. I started posting my fan video edits on Vine. I branched out and made fan edits of celebrities, actresses, singers, etc. I slowly grew my audience and made fellow editor online friends. Unfortunately, Vine shut down, which was a very sad day for the video editing community. The friends I made had moved on to different hobbies or started posting their edits on Instagram. As I reached high school, I moved away from my hometown of Colorado and started my new life in Florida. I barely edited videos at this point. School, homework, and hanging out with my new friends occupied my time and mind. I would make edits like once a year. I didn’t realize how much I missed editing until I took it seriously again. It was 2019, my senior year of high school, and I was in my TV video production class and I thought to myself, “what do I want to do with my life? Video Editing or Art?” I chose video editing. I asked myself this question because it was time for college applications and I wanted to know what career path to go into. My favorite high school classes were AP Art and TV video Production. These were my main hobbies at the time. At the end of my senior year, TikTok started seriously blowing up! I saw the videos of creators on my For You page and it’s like a lightbulb appeared above my head. I said to myself “I want to make videos.” So that’s what I did! I started making videos. My first videos were very different from what they are currently. I would make comedy videos. My first ever viral video was a comedy video of Shrek and I, while I said he’s my type to the Saweetie song, My Type. In the video, I included video editing for the first time on TikTok and placed myself in Shrek’s swamp while he opened the door. I couldn’t believe when the video went viral. I told all of my friends and family. I stared at my phone for hours scrolling through the comments. Pure adrenaline rushed through my body. I started incorporating more video editing into my content, until one day I made a video that was pure video editing. It didn’t have some sprinkled in random effects, the whole video was edited with lots of effects and transitions. I called this the “aesthetic edit”. This video went viral. I continued making “aesthetic edits” since then and steered away from comedy videos. I grew my TikTok audience, then joined other socials as well. When I had several videos that were performing well, I knew I could make something out of this. I put my email in my bio for business opportunities. Next thing I knew, I had brands and video editing commission requests in my inbox. I felt so fulfilled because I made the right career choice, while healing my inner child at the same time. I was so happy to be filming and editing videos of myself again like I did when I was a kid. Years went on and I continued to make aesthetic edits. My fashion style went through several changes, from indie to rave girl to Y2K to scene girl. Today, I have a TikTok audience of 1.1 million followers. If I knew that I would have that as a kid, I would cry and jump for joy. I have spent several years building my community and refining my video editing skills. I wouldn’t be where I am without the support of my community, my friends, and family. Believing in myself, that I can make it, and that I can turn my passions into my life career has been super important and valuable as well.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
The road has been bumpy along the way. One of my biggest struggles was getting used to full time video editing as a career. As a child, I would edit videos whenever I felt like it because there were no responsibilities. Now, I am an adult with responsibilities. Video editing consumes most of my time now because it is my full time career and I depend on it for my income. Each edit can take hours to days. Video editing does feel very demanding of my time, however even though I feel this way, it is still my passion. I have to prevent myself from getting burnt out. Throughout the years I have burnt myself out from time to time. There are days where I do not have motivation to edit videos. Being self employed, it is so important to have a schedule and to practice healthy habits at the same time. So, when I feel unmotivated I have different workloads then when I do feel motivated. On the days where I feel unmotivated, I have to remind myself that it is okay to have days like these. I am human, not a video editing machine, and it is normal, good and healthy to take recovery time. Mental health always comes first. When I feel well rested and practice healthy habits daily, I am able create better videos. Video editing is so mentally stimulating and can be eye straining. There are times I will stare at my screen for hours and not look away because I am in my flow state, and even though the flow state is amazing, staring at the screen for hours is not the healthiest for the eyes. There has been several says where I have gotten eye strains that turn into bad migraines and make the rest of the day unworkable. Now I have blue light glasses and practice the 20-20-20 rule, a method where every 20 minutes you take 20 seconds to look 20 feet away. When my body is giving me signals of pain, I listen to it and take a break. Because of so many project failures and crashes through out the years, I had to train myself to CTRL+S (Save) my projects at least every 30 minutes, and sometimes now I save my project every 5 minutes. One of the worst things as a video editor is making hours of video editing progress, then an effect crashes and you lose those hours of progress. With modern technology, it does not happen as much because there is auto save now, but it definitely was a struggle along the way.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I am a full time self-employed content creator. I specialize in creating high quality and polished VFX aesthetic video edits that are nostalgic and reminiscent of the 2000s-2010s eras. I mix fashion and beauty into my videos. I would describe my personal style as Y2K, Frutiger metro, mcbling, emo and scene vibes. One of my most popular video styles are what I call “lyric edits”, where I specialize in typography, using a variety of fonts and text animations throughout the video to go along with the song. The songs I choose are typically from the 2000s-2010s, Kesha being my personal favorite choice of an artist! These videos have bold and vibrant effects, hand drawn backgrounds, and various color schemes. I am also known for my fashion videos, a couple popular ones being: Dream closet, Outfits Inspired By, and Build an outfit with me. This is where I showcase my personal fashion style and various outfits. When it comes to business, I work with brands to create eye-catching and high quality advertisements, either posted on my page or theirs. I don’t want my ads to be boring, I want them to stand out in the feed and be super stylistic! My audience loves high quality editing, aesthetics, and nostalgia, so if the ad checks all those boxes, chances are the ad will perform well! I also work on video editing commissions, typically for musical artists. I love to work together with the artist and see the vision come to life! I am so proud of how far I have came with my video editing. I have spent 13 years of my life learning video editing and when I compare my old videos to how my videos look now, I have improved so much! Video editing is a non-stop learning journey and that is what makes it so much fun because there is always a new technique, effect, or strategy to learn!
What do you like best about our city? What do you like least?
What I love most about Orlando, Florida is the events! The night life is so great and there’s rarely a time where I just want to leave and go home. I love the community of people that I meet at these events. My favorite types of events are the LGBTQ+ and EDM shows. A lot of people have been so friendly, easy going, and love to party. When I’ve traveled to other states, I’ve really noticed a difference. From my experiences, the people of Orlando love to socialize and know how to have a great time! I have made lots of friends here through the years and made memories I’ll never forget.
What I like least about the city is driving on the highways. We definitely have some crazy drivers here and the traffic can get so bad sometimes. I think the transportation system could definitely improve.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/its.jenny
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/people/Jenny-Lek/61591764842841/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@jennylek
- TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@jennylek
