M. Zachary Sherman started his 17-year career in motion pictures in 1989 as a production assistant on Tom Clancy’s The Hunt For Red October. In 1991, Sherman entered college with a double major of film production and journalism and while he enjoyed the collegic environment, he found the practical application of working on actual productions provided him a better knowledge of the industry. He ended his position as a full-time student in 1993 and his production knowledge grew as he worked on many films in several different capacities. These productions included Navy Seals, Flight of the Intruder, and A Few Good Men. In-between these projects, Sherman put his creative writing talents to the test, penning several screenplays on his own for freelance producers in and around Hollywood. In 1995, Sherman served as the Second Assistant Director on Dominique Othenin-Girard’s film Beyond Desire.
Though he enjoyed his on-set experience, the work didn’t fulfill his creative impulses and he moved on to Walt Disney’s video game arm, Walt Disney Computer Software. There, he served as the head video game designer for almost two years. Always the avid learner, he consumed as much as he could regarding the integration of the artistic community and the computer savvy programmers, deciphering the link between the two mediums. At Disney, he was able to utilize his writing and computer art talents on several different video game titles penning scripts, creating the special game mechanics as well as level designs for Gargoyles: The Eye of Odin, Maui Mallard and development work on The Crow videogame.
Always a huge admirer of special effects films and noting computers were becoming the staple in the effects industry, Sherman decided to turn his attention to the digital aspects of filmmaking. With a full knowledge of on-set production, computer art programs, several operating systems and a background in the artistic fields, Sherman quickly landed at Dream Quest Images as a digital effects artist on the Japanese motion control ride The Legend River. From there, he went on to work at Todd-AO Digital Images where he worked as a digital effects artist on The Long Kiss Goodnight, Money Talks and James Cameron’s Oscar-winning Titanic. After several challenging years at Todd-AO, Sherman moved into the freelance world, working on several projects at different companies.
In the end of 1997, Sherman made the move north to work for George Lucas’ Industrial Light and Magic in Marin County where he worked for almost ten years on over 32 films such films such as the new Star Wars Trilogy, Saving Private Ryan, The Mummy Returns, Jurassic Park III, the Harry Potter films, and more recently The Chronicles of Narnia and Pirates of the Caribbean 2.
In 1999, Sherman served as screenwriter on SCENT Film’s Visa For Adventure, produced by Ilia Salkind (producer of Superman 1-4) and recently penned the screenplay adaptation to critically acclaimed science fiction writer Sir Arthur C. Clarke’s short story Maelstrom II for ILM director Jeroen Lapré.
With a wealth of personal creative concepts begging to be realized, this screenwriter/filmmaker finally went out on his own in 2006 and began exploring the world of comic book scripting. With his science-fiction/Tom Clancy-esque graphic novel series SOCOM: Seal Team Seven recently published by Image Comics and his critically-acclaimed short story “Entrenched” in Dark Horse Comics’ Star Wars: Visionaries graphic novel premiering to rave reviews, Sherman realized he had more original stories he wanted to tell.
Sherman is also a member of the United States Marine Corps reserves, serving
a logistical capacity as a Lance Corporal. During his time as a Marine,
Sherman has earned the Global War on Terror medal as well as the National Defense Service Medal.
