'It's About Giving The Asian Culinary Scene The Storytelling Platform'

It’s about giving the Asian culinary scene the storytelling platform it fully deserves, says CreatorsLab’s CEO and co-founder Jon Lister.

- Nida Seah

In one of the episodes of The Creators video series, MasterChef Singapore judge and celebrity chef Bjorn Shen muses on how his wife tried to stop his propensity to draw a certain part of a man’s anatomy.

The rest of the episode, not to mention the entire series, continues in a similar vein. It’s unfiltered, uncensored and refreshingly authentic. Through this series created by local content startup CreatorsLab, we are given a rare insight into the lives of Asia’s most inspiring culinary talents. Each episode, which streams on YouTube and at Creatorslab.co, also features interviews from family and friends that reveal their not-so-glamorous road to success.

At the helm of the video series is CreatorsLab’s CEO and co-founder Jon Lister whose goal is to tell the real and often messy stories behind the most celebrated chefs in the region. Together with co-founder and executive producer Arijit Sengupta and a team of like-minded creatives, he has since profiled talents like chef-owner Han Li Guang (LG Han) of one-Michelin-starred restaurant Labyrinth, pastry chef Janice Wong, and chef-owner of private dining experience Ownselfmake, Shen Tan. epicure speaks to Lister to find out how it all began, why food is the topic of choice, and what we can expect from the team in the near future.

How and why did you get into filmmaking?

I started making films with my Dad’s VHS camcorder and my toys when I was five years old. I think I had watched a TV show about how Wallace and Gromit was made and thought I could do it myself! It wasn’t until I moved to Hong Kong around 11 years ago when I started working in video professionally. I worked for a company that did travel and food videos, which took me to Malaysia and then Singapore.

When and why was CreatorsLab started?