Z.D. Smith

Matthew James Andrew Smith (born December 27, 1977), whose screen name is Z.D. Smith, is an American actor and producer primarily working in Midwest based independent film productions. His recent projects include Sister Mary, Not Another B Movie, and award winners^[1][2]Michael Morlock's Supernatural World and Paranormal Calamity.^[3]

Early life

Z.D. was born Matthew James Smith in Burlington, Iowa. He is the first born child of James Thomann Smith and Dawn Marie (Powers) Smith. His descent is roughly 5/8 Irish. The remaining 3/8 is unclear but there's a tiny bit of English and German in there. The family got transferred often through James' job in retail management at J. C. Penney and they moved to Clinton, Iowa when Z.D. was two years old. At age four (a couple months shy of five), the Smiths moved again to Anderson, Indiana. They would continue to reside there for about seven years until the next transfer to Lafayette, Indiana came, just shy of Z.D.'s 12th birthday. Z.D. attended Wainwright Middle School and then McCutcheon High School where he was a left-handed pitcher on the baseball team (the first varsity batter he faced was future MLB player Eric Bruntlett who lined out to short) and a member of the National Honor Society. He then attended Ball State University where he studied Telecommunications with an emphasis in video and audio production and is also where he took his first acting classes. He graduated with a B.A. in May 2000. Z.D.'s parents and lone sibling Paul Michael Smith still reside in Lafayette today.

Early career

Z.D. first came up to the Chicago area through an internship he did at WSCR "The Score" from Jan-April 2000 (his final semester of college) and lived at his grandparents' house in Hillside, IL. He worked on "The Afternoon Show" which aired Monday through Friday from 4pm-8pm. In his first week, show hosts Dan McNeil and Dan Jiggetts put him on the air after McNeil (who was also a Ball State alum) was impressed with the cut he made of the show's intro. Once Z.D. started talking, McNeil commented that he sounded like Jeff Spicoli, the character Sean Penn played in Fast Times at Ridgemont High. "Spicoli the Intern" became somewhat of a recurring character for the remainder of the stint.^[4] After graduating in May 2000, Z.D. returned to Lafayette and worked temp jobs while seeking his next opportunity to hopefully return to the Chicago area. This would come in August when he began an internship at The Jerry Springer Show (he would have to re-enroll at Ball State since he had already graduated). Since the internship was unpaid, Z.D. also worked a temp job on his days off and pursued a business opportunity with Primerica while continuing to live at his grandparents' to keep expenses minimal. He would stay on at the Springer Show until Christmas 2000 and now with two internships under his belt attempted to seek employment. He would find this in a freelance job as a production assistant on "Preps: Chicago Hoops", a documentary series which followed the day to day lives of a select number of promising high school basketball players in the Chicago area. Notable players involved included future NBA players Eddy Curry, Will Bynum, and Luther Head.^[5] Z.D.'s main responsibility was logging raw footage for pre-editing. The show aired nationally on Fox Sports Net in the Spring of 2001. The assignment ended in April 2001 and finding more jobs had not gotten any easier for Z.D. He decided to use the extra time he now had to focus on the Primerica opportunity while picking up part-time work at Jewel-Osco in Elmhurst, IL. Encouraged by the initial progress he was seeing at Primerica, Z.D. began to view it as a vehicle to gain financial command of his life so he could more actively pursue the entertainment opportunities that were appealing to him without having to "chase the paycheck". The pursuit would last until mid-2004 when personal and financial issues that had been surfacing over the previous months forced Z.D. to seek a new direction. To get some income coming in, he started working part-time as a package handler at FedEx Ground in Wheeling, IL. This wound up being the start of something more than he expected as he was promoted to a full-time quality assurance position after just a few months and by the Fall of 2006 was in management.

Getting Back In

In April 2003, Z.D. had an encounter with a guy named Scott Vanderstuyf (aka Scott Alan) who was re-tarring his grandparents' driveway. Z.D.'s grandparents had been a long-time client of his and he also had a public access radio show on WJJG. Scott was aware of Z.D.'s background (through many yammerings from his grandparents to give him a 'job') and hoped to gain some insight from him on the politics of the radio industry. He asked him to help out on the television show he was doing to coincide with his TV show he was doing on public access. Z.D. (too busy with his current direction in finance) referred a recruit from his business (who had the same college degree he had) to edit the show. That guy eventually got a paying job and quit the show, and around this time (August '03), Z.D. (who'd just gone through a hard breakup) was looking for an escape into the world he'd originally been pursuing by working on a public access show similar to one he worked on in college. He contacted Scott to get involved with his show. It was shot at GETV^[6] who's manager was John Wesley Norton. Norton was an aspiring independent filmmaker who'd been working on completing his first film (Space Daze) for several years. Months later, sometime in the spring of '04, Z.D. saw John working on editing a scene that had Corey Feldman in it and asked him what that was. John, seemingly semi-embarrassed by how long he'd been working on the movie, brushed him off like he did not want to talk about it. Nonetheless, it planted a seed in Z.D.'s mind that John was pursuing what he himself REALLY wanted to get into.

Filmography

References

External links

• Z.D. Smith at the Internet Movie Database