Dan Partland

President

Dan has been a director/producer/writer of both documentary films & television for over 20 years. His work has found success in theatrical, art-house, cable, and network outlets and includes some landmark films of the American Independent Cinema. In the 15 years that the Emmys have recognized primetime nonfiction series, Partland’s shows have been nominated for best in class 5 times, and in 3 different sub-genres; Reality, Nonfiction format, and Documentary. Partland has twice won nonfiction series Emmys and in 2011 and 2012 was nominated by the Producers Guild of America for Nonfiction Producer of the Year. In 2001, Partland won an Emmy (Best Non-Fiction Program) for his work on the ground-breaking 13-part doc series American High on Fox. Partland served as the Supervising Producer and a Director of the critically acclaimed show that is widely regarded as one of the progenitors of the current doc series genre.

Partland’s work has spanned several nonfiction genres.  He produced and directed How To Raise An Olympian, a winter Olympics special for NBC and was Showrunner for the multi-award-winning CNN archival series The Sixties. Partland was the Executive Producer and Showrunner of A&E’s Intervention for over 150 episodes, garnering countless awards and accolades including the Emmy for best reality series.

Partland spent the early days of his career working under Albert Maysles, a founding filmmaker of the cinema verité movement. While on staff at Maysles Films, Partland worked on the dozens of documentary films and television commercials that the legendary company produced during his tenure.

Nicole Zien

SVP Development

Nicole has been a Development Executive and Co-EP in the documentary-series television space for over 16 years. Most recently, Nicole ran the unscripted department at the Emmy Award winning company, Herzog & Co., where she developed and sold projects to Netflix, CNBC, GSN, AMC, Travel Channel, Discovery Channel and others. During Nicole’s tenure, she established the company as a recognized leader in television production, with notable production & development credits such as: Hot Girls Wanted: Turned On, The Agent, Tiburones: Sharks of Cuba, Celebrity Adventure Club, Price of Fame, Whistleblowers, and Debate America.

Prior to Herzog & Co., Nicole held the position of Senior Director of Development at CMT network, where she set up the first Los Angeles in-house production, oversaw shows such as Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders and Nanny 911 and developed the network’s original hit series, Country Fried Home Videos. Prior to CMT, Nicole had development roles at MTV, Dick Clark Productions and Fox Television Studios where she shepherded FX’s Emmy nominated drama, The Shield.

Kurt Schemper

Executive in Charge of Production

Kurt Schemper is a producer and executive in the film & television industry. He began his career in production management at the sitcom powerhouse, Carsey-Werner (That ‘70s Show, 3rd Rock From the Sun). In 2004 he began freelancing and produced several independent films before embracing documentary television. He has produced award-winning content for many networks, including 138 episodes of the hit series Intervention, for which he received the outstanding reality series Emmy in 2009 and Producers Guild nominations in 2010 & 2011.

He is also a member of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences and the Producer’s Guild of America.