Matt Cherry

Matthew A. Cherry (born December 14, 1981 in Chicago, Illinois) is an African American former American football wide receiver. He attended Loyola Academy in Wilmette, Illinois, he attended college at the University of Akron and played in the National Football League for the Jacksonville Jaguars, Baltimore Ravens, Carolina Panthers and Cincinnati Bengals.
Cherry, currently a film and music video director and is also the co-founder and executive producer of Los Angeles based production company "Transparent Filmworks".
College
Cherry played college football for four seasons with the Akron Zips under head Coach Lee Owens and was an All-MAC Conference wide receiver. He finished his career as the all time leading receiver in school history and ended his senior season with records for total receptions, yards, touchdowns, punt return yards and punt return touchdowns. Throughout college, Cherry was involved activities that included serving as an on air radio personality and production programmer for the Akron radio station WZIP, college representative for Elektra Records, a professional disc jockey ("DJ Protege") under Mo Betta Entertainment, and intern at WENZ in nearby Cleveland. He graduated from Akron in 2004 with a double major in Radio/TV Broadcasting and Media Production and a minor in Marketing. After clocking in a 4.46 40 yard dash during the University Of Akron pro day, Cherry was presented with the opportunity to sign on as a free agent with the Jacksonville Jaguars of the National Football League
NFL
After college, Cherry entered training camp with the Jacksonville Jaguars under head coach Jack Del Rio. He came into camp as a free agent behind first round draft pick receiver Reggie Williams and fourth round draft pick Ernest Wilford. He ultimately made the teams practice squad where he stayed for the first 15 games of the season. He was offered an opportunity to sign with the active roster of the Cincinnati Bengals during the last game of the season and took advantage of the opportunity. He played in their final game against the Philadelphia Eagles. The following season with the Bengals he did not get an opportunity to play due to Cincinnati's deep receiving core which included pro bowlers Chad Ocho Cinco, T. J. Houshmandzadeh, Peter Warrick, Kelley Washington and draft picks Chris Henry and Tab Perry. Cherry was released after the final game of training camp and signed immediately with the Canadian Football League's Ottawa Renegades. After finishing the season with Ottawa, he returned to the United States and had tryouts with the NFL's Carolina Panthers and the Arena Football League's Los Angeles Avengers. He was offered contracts with both teams but eventually ended up signing with the Panthers and was allocated to the Hamburg Sea Devils in NFL Europe. He played a full season there upon returning to the United States and being released. Cherry then founded "Cherry Entertainment" with the hopes of being able to pursue television and music video production full time in Los Angeles.
Soon after, Cherry, one final time, sought an NFL return and worked out with the New England Patriots and Baltimore Ravens and eventually signed with Baltimore. At 24, Cherry officially retired from the NFL and moved to Los Angeles to pursue employment in media.
Post NFL
Upon arriving to LA, Cherry landed work as a production assistant. He then went on to work on over 40 commercials in a years time ranging from companies Nike, Addias and Reebok to Washington Mutual Lincoln and Goodyear as a PA. He also worked on a couple reality series and over 15 music videos as an assistant director for artists such as Diddy, Ciara, Ashley Tisdale and Jordin Sparks. He got his first job in television in the summer of 2007 when he was hired as a stage production assistant for the hit TV series Girlfriends on The CW Network. When Girlfriends was canceled due to the WGA Writer's Strike of 2007 he then moved on and was hired to work in the assistant director's department on the NBC series Heroes. He worked on that show for all of the third season and then went on to work in the post production department of the CBS series Accidentally On Purpose that stars Jenna Elfman.
Cherry Entertainment
While working as a production assistant in the television world. Matthew studied and grew fascinated with directing. A year after moving to LA. Cherry Entertainment which is Matthew Cherry's personal brand production brand received its first credit in 2008 when he was able to direct and produce a video for R&B artist Terry Dexter. Since then he has gone on to direct music videos for Kindred The Family Soul "House Of Love" that was the VH1 Soul Spotlight in January 2009 Jazmine Sullivan for "In Love With Another Man", Common for "Make My Day", and Leigh Jones for "All This Love".
This Time
In February 2010 Matthew directed a romantic drama in short form titled This Time that stars actresses Reagan Gomez-Preston, Terri J. Vaughn actors Michael Moss, The Game alumni Barry Floyd and New York Giants wide receiver Sinorice Moss. The film was highly successful on the film festival circuit and was accepted to over 10 different festivals including Boston International Film Festival, Martha's Vineyard African American Film Festival and Roxbury International Film Festival. On September 23rd, 2010 the short film was uploaded online and was received with universal praise from the online community. It received over 20,000 views in the first 48 hours on being online. It was so successful in face that on October 12th 2010 actress Reagan Gomez was a guest on The Monique Show and the short film was featured. In December 2010 Cherry Entertainment signed a deal with the NBC series African American Short Films for the broadcast television rights.
Transparent Filmworks
In early 2011 Matthew Cherry partnered with celebrity photographer Scott Hebert to create the production company. Transparent Filmworks was created with a mission to produce innovative music videos, documentaries, shorts, narrative feature and web content. Scott Hebert has photographed numerous celebrities for popular men's magazines such as Black Mens, Show, King, Essence and Rolling Out Magazine. Transparent Filmwork is currently in pre-production for the company's first feature feature film The Last Fall. The film is a coming of age sports drama that shows the difficulties that many professional athletes face when trying to transition into a life after sports. The Last Fall goes into production July 11th, 2011. Since partnering up they have shot 9 music videos, that of which include Onitsha "Karaoke", Kindred The Family Soul ft. Snoop Dogg "You Got Love", Chester Gregory "If U Only", The Foreign Exchange "Authenticity", Bilal "Little One", N'Dambi "Ooo Baby" and Bo Betton "Intimidate", Kindred The Family Soul "Magic Happen", and Eric Roberson ft. Chubb Rock "Summertime Anthem". Transparent Filmworks gets its name from the creative styles of both Matthew and Scott and their openness and commitment to sharing their process with the hopes of both educating and entertaining.

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