Palmetto High School senior Zachary Rouviere was the first freshman to ever be accepted in the television production class. His sophomore year, he became president of television production and has held that title ever since. Generally, only upperclassmen are chosen president, but at that point, he was the most qualified student in the class.
Rouviere continues to distinguish himself in TV production. He is now Palmetto’s Silver Knight nominee in Digital Media category.
Rouviere started his television production career with more of an understanding about television production than most students have. That’s because his family is in the film industry. His mom is a talent manager and his older sister, Taylor, is in the Netflix TV series Bloodline. His little brother, Koby, was in the TV series How I Met Your Mother playing Marshall in the flashbacks. His younger sister, Sydney, was in the movie The Change-up, playing Jason Bateman’s daughter.
When he was in elementary school, he and his family spent a year living in California before moving back to Miami. One thing he has discovered over the years is that he prefers being behind the camera instead of in front of the camera.
“I love being behind the scenes,” Rouviere says. “I take pride in making something look really right. Editing is where I find I have the most fun.”
His production class created some projects for Dr. Lawrence Feldman, the school board chairman.
“We went to all the schools that feed Palmetto High,” he says.
They highlighted the schools and made a case on how public schools can stand up in quality to private schools.
“Last year, the administration had asked for a video on random acts of kindness,” he says.
The production team also covers all school events, including Plant the Pride or prom and creates videos about them.
For his college major, he’s considering television production or computer engineering.
He’s applied to Georgia Tech, the University of Florida, the University of Texas at Austin and California Berkley.
“I’m looking at the computer engineering for all of them,” he says. “If I go to California, I’m looking at the film industry. If I end up going to UF, GT or Texas, I’m going to stick with engineering.”
He’s had experience in dealing with computer issues. He’s vice president of the American Technology Honor Society at school and he worked with the technology mentor program for his Silver Knight project. That project included upgrading the teacher computers.
“We do a lot of projects to help the school,” he says, adding that he volunteered two summers at Palmetto, working with computers.
He also volunteered at the Alexander Montessori Sports Track summer program.
“I was a counselor-in-training there,” he says. “I grew up in that camp.”
He loves working with the kids.
“They are such a pleasure to be with,” he says. “For the large part of it, I was overseeing a group of kids doing sports activities. It was a really fun and great experience.”
Another great experience was being the captain for the boys’ cross country team. Personally, he did well, coming in twenty-second in the district. This year the team didn’t make it out of districts, although the girls’ team qualified for states.
He’s also on the track team, running the 4 x 800 relay, the 1,600 meter and the 3,200 meter events.
At home, Rouviere gets plenty of exercise trying to keep up with the family’s eight dogs. The family is involved in dog rescue programs so all the dogs are rescues.
Linda Rodriguez Bernfeld
Congratulations on your Silver Knight nomination! Your accomplishments to date are amazing, but can’t compare to what’s in store for you. The best is yet to come!