Bryce Zabel
Encyclopedia
Bryce H. Zabel is an American television producer, director, writer, and occasional actor. He is known as the chairman/CEO of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences who was forced to twice postpone the Emmy Awards
following the September 11 attacks. He has received the "created by" or "developed by" credit of five network and syndicated television series.
In television, Zabel was showrunner (creator or developer/producer/writer) on the UFO-conspiracy series Dark Skies
from 1996–1997, The Crow: Stairway to Heaven from 1998–1999 and the Fox African-American superhero series M.A.N.T.I.S.
from 1994-1995. He also wrote and produced on Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman
(1993–1994), and The Fifth Corner
(1992).
As a feature writer, Zabel has received writing credit on Atlantis: The Lost Empire
and Mortal Kombat: Annihilation
. He also wrote the first Sci-Fi Channel original film, Office Denial.
A long-time member of the Directors Guild of America
, he first worked as a director on the Los Angeles magazine series "Eye on LA" and Willow: The Making of an Adventure. He is set to make his feature directorial debut in 2009 on Let's Do It, a comedy about the first student film ever produced, back in 1929.
As an actor, he appeared as a reporter in the Dark Skies episode "The Warren Omission", and as a priest in the Lois & Clark episode, "All Shook Up".
In 2001, Zabel became the first writer/producer to be elected as Chairman and CEO of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, since his boyhood idol Rod Serling
. Elected the month before 9/11, he took office at a time when he was forced to twice postpone the 53rd Primetime Emmy Awards
. In 2006, he was interviewed about this decision by the Dallas-based Media Orchard :
While leading the TV Academy the next year, he led the negotiations that resulted in the Emmy telecast license fee being increased by 250 percent. He left office in 2003, saying his one term was so eventful it felt like two.
. It deals with mass extinction events.
The latest screenplay written by Bryce and Jackie Zabel, Miles From Nowhere completed filming in Los Angeles in the summer of 2008. It is the story of a high school athlete who decides to try for a sub-four-minute mile to deal with the death of a friend. The film stars Treat Williams
.
Zabel has also created a film review site, Movie Smackdown, that reviews two related films in competition against each other. The slogan is "Two Films - One Review - No Holds Barred."
; "Justice Swerved") and Original Long Form (Dark Skies
; "The Awakening"). His other nominations were shared with David E. Kelley
and Brent V. Friedman. Zabel was also nominated for an Edgar Allan Poe
award for Best Television Episode (L.A. Law; "Justice Swerved") in 1991. The nomination was shared with David E. Kelley.
. He earned a BA
degree in broadcast journalism at the University of Oregon
in Eugene
. After graduation, Zabel stayed in Eugene and worked at television station KVAL-TV
and radio station KZEL-FM
. He taught as an adjunct professor of a graduate level class on producing at University of Southern California
from 2006-2007.
. They have three children.
53rd Primetime Emmy Awards
The 53rd Annual Primetime Emmy Awards were finally held Sunday, November 4, 2001, seven weeks late. The awards show was hosted by Ellen DeGeneres and was broadcast on CBS. The ceremony was re-scheduled twice from its original date of September 16 at the Shrine Auditorium because of the September...
following the September 11 attacks. He has received the "created by" or "developed by" credit of five network and syndicated television series.
Overview
With hundreds of hours of produced film and television credits, CNN correspondent-turned-writer-producer-director Zabel has most recently scripted a trio of new mini-series which aired in the U.S. market and were distributed worldwide. They include the medical thriller Pandemic (2007, Hallmark), the pirate adventure Blackbeard (2006, Hallmark), and the disaster epic The Poseidon Adventure (2005, NBC).In television, Zabel was showrunner (creator or developer/producer/writer) on the UFO-conspiracy series Dark Skies
Dark Skies
Dark Skies is an American UFO conspiracy theory-based sci-fi television series that aired from the 1996 to 1997 season for 18 episodes, plus a two-hour pilot episode. The success of The X-Files on Fox proved there was an audience for science fiction shows, resulting in NBC commissioning this...
from 1996–1997, The Crow: Stairway to Heaven from 1998–1999 and the Fox African-American superhero series M.A.N.T.I.S.
M.A.N.T.I.S.
M.A.N.T.I.S. is an American Science fiction television series that aired for one season on the Fox Network between August 1994 and March 1995. The original two-hour pilot was produced by Sam Raimi and developed by Sam Hamm. It stars actor Carl Lumbly. The show is unique in that it depicts an...
from 1994-1995. He also wrote and produced on Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman
Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman
Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman was a live-action American television series based on the Superman comic books...
(1993–1994), and The Fifth Corner
The Fifth Corner
The Fifth Corner was a very short-lived American television series which aired on NBC and produced by TriStar Television in 1992. The two-hour pilot aired on April 17, 1992, and one final episode aired the week after.-Series overview:...
(1992).
As a feature writer, Zabel has received writing credit on Atlantis: The Lost Empire
Atlantis: The Lost Empire
Atlantis: The Lost Empire is a 2001 American animated film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation. Written by Tab Murphy, directed by Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise, and produced by Don Hahn, it is the first science fiction film in the Disney animated features canon and the 41st overall. The film...
and Mortal Kombat: Annihilation
Mortal Kombat: Annihilation
Mortal Kombat: Annihilation is a 1997 American martial arts action film that was the sequel to 1995's Mortal Kombat, and was directed by John R. Leonetti, who had served as the cinematographer for the previous film...
. He also wrote the first Sci-Fi Channel original film, Office Denial.
A long-time member of the Directors Guild of America
Directors Guild of America
Directors Guild of America is an entertainment labor union which represents the interests of film and television directors in the United States motion picture industry...
, he first worked as a director on the Los Angeles magazine series "Eye on LA" and Willow: The Making of an Adventure. He is set to make his feature directorial debut in 2009 on Let's Do It, a comedy about the first student film ever produced, back in 1929.
As an actor, he appeared as a reporter in the Dark Skies episode "The Warren Omission", and as a priest in the Lois & Clark episode, "All Shook Up".
In 2001, Zabel became the first writer/producer to be elected as Chairman and CEO of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, since his boyhood idol Rod Serling
Rod Serling
Rodman Edward "Rod" Serling was an American screenwriter, novelist, television producer, and narrator best known for his live television dramas of the 1950s and his science fiction anthology TV series, The Twilight Zone. Serling was active in politics, both on and off the screen and helped form...
. Elected the month before 9/11, he took office at a time when he was forced to twice postpone the 53rd Primetime Emmy Awards
53rd Primetime Emmy Awards
The 53rd Annual Primetime Emmy Awards were finally held Sunday, November 4, 2001, seven weeks late. The awards show was hosted by Ellen DeGeneres and was broadcast on CBS. The ceremony was re-scheduled twice from its original date of September 16 at the Shrine Auditorium because of the September...
. In 2006, he was interviewed about this decision by the Dallas-based Media Orchard :
"In 2001, the Emmys were scheduled for September 16th. So we cancelled them. What else could we do? Five days after 9/11 nobody was going to be in a self-congratulatory mood to celebrate on red carpets with little gold statues when thousands had died so tragically. We re-scheduled for October 7. Incredibly, that's the day the bombing campaign in Afghanistan began. We were forced to cancel again. I went out that morning before some 200 TV cameras with Les Moonves of CBS and we talked to the media about all this. I got a call from a friend who said, "Dude, you've been on TV more this weekend than the president." It was an amazing media carpet ride -- appearances on everything from "Politically Incorrect" to "The Today Show." Anyway, we tried again on November 4 and actually did the show. We were up against the seventh game of an exciting World Series but who cared?"
While leading the TV Academy the next year, he led the negotiations that resulted in the Emmy telecast license fee being increased by 250 percent. He left office in 2003, saying his one term was so eventful it felt like two.
Current work
Zabel is currently the lead writer and a producer on Animal Armageddon, an eight-part non-fiction miniseries for Animal PlanetAnimal Planet
Animal Planet is an American cable tv specialty channel that launched on October 1, 1996. It is distributed by Discovery Communications. A high-definition simulcast of the channel launched on September 1, 2007.-History:...
. It deals with mass extinction events.
The latest screenplay written by Bryce and Jackie Zabel, Miles From Nowhere completed filming in Los Angeles in the summer of 2008. It is the story of a high school athlete who decides to try for a sub-four-minute mile to deal with the death of a friend. The film stars Treat Williams
Treat Williams
Richard Treat Williams is a Screen Actors Guild Award–nominated American actor and children's book author who has appeared on film, stage and television...
.
Zabel has also created a film review site, Movie Smackdown, that reviews two related films in competition against each other. The slogan is "Two Films - One Review - No Holds Barred."
Awards and nominations
In 2008, Zabel's Hallmark miniseries Pandemic (co-written with Jackie Zabel) won the Writers Guild of America award in the Original Long Form category. It was the third WGA award Zabel has been nominated for and his first win. Previously, he was nominated for Episodic Drama (L.A. LawL.A. Law
L.A. Law is a US television legal drama that ran on NBC from September 15, 1986 to May 19, 1994. L.A. Law reflected the social and cultural ideologies of the 1980s and early 1990s and many of the cases featured on the show dealt with hot topic issues such as abortion, racism, gay rights,...
; "Justice Swerved") and Original Long Form (Dark Skies
Dark Skies
Dark Skies is an American UFO conspiracy theory-based sci-fi television series that aired from the 1996 to 1997 season for 18 episodes, plus a two-hour pilot episode. The success of The X-Files on Fox proved there was an audience for science fiction shows, resulting in NBC commissioning this...
; "The Awakening"). His other nominations were shared with David E. Kelley
David E. Kelley
David Edward Kelley is an American television writer and producer, known as the creator of Picket Fences, Chicago Hope, The Practice, Ally McBeal, Boston Public, Boston Legal and Harry's Law, as well as several films. Kelley is one of the only screenwriters to have had a show created by him run on...
and Brent V. Friedman. Zabel was also nominated for an Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective...
award for Best Television Episode (L.A. Law; "Justice Swerved") in 1991. The nomination was shared with David E. Kelley.
Education
Zabel attended high school in Hillsboro, OregonHillsboro, Oregon
Hillsboro is the fifth-largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon and is the county seat of Washington County. Lying in the Tualatin Valley on the west side of the Portland metropolitan area, the city is home to many high-technology companies, such as Intel, that compose what has become known as the...
. He earned a BA
Bachelor of Arts
A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...
degree in broadcast journalism at the University of Oregon
University of Oregon
-Colleges and schools:The University of Oregon is organized into eight schools and colleges—six professional schools and colleges, an Arts and Sciences College and an Honors College.- School of Architecture and Allied Arts :...
in Eugene
Eugene, Oregon
Eugene is the second largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon and the seat of Lane County. It is located at the south end of the Willamette Valley, at the confluence of the McKenzie and Willamette rivers, about east of the Oregon Coast.As of the 2010 U.S...
. After graduation, Zabel stayed in Eugene and worked at television station KVAL-TV
KVAL-TV
KVAL-TV, channel 13, is a television station in Eugene, Oregon, USA. It is an affiliate of the CBS network. The station began broadcasting on April 15, 1954...
and radio station KZEL-FM
KZEL-FM
-History:KZEL-FM was founded and funded in 1967 by Eugene lumberman George "Tirebiter" Zellner. When he purchased the station, its call letters were KWFS. Zellner changed the call letters to KZEL and sold the station to Jay and Barbara West in 1971....
. He taught as an adjunct professor of a graduate level class on producing at University of Southern California
University of Southern California
The University of Southern California is a private, not-for-profit, nonsectarian, research university located in Los Angeles, California, United States. USC was founded in 1880, making it California's oldest private research university...
from 2006-2007.
Personal life
Zabel is married to writer and producer Jackie Zabel whom he met during a news conference in the office of the mayor of Los AngelesLos Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
. They have three children.