Biography
Sam Sandak was born in Los Angeles, CA. His father, Bill Freiberger, is a comedy writer. His mother, Beth Sussman, is a Juilliard-trained classical pianist. When Sam was six years old, the family moved to Sherman Oaks, CA.
Eager to see what the movie business had to offer, Sam's mother went into labor in the North Hollywood Cinemark. Less than a year later, he made his first television appearance on "Herman's Head" as Herman's imaginary baby. When Sam was 11 years old, he received his first television writing credit for an episode of "Drawn Together." At 16, he received The California Arts Scholar Governor's Medal from Arnold Schwarzenegger.
While attending New York University's prestigious Tisch School of the Arts, Sam wanted to make an exciting film that included pyrotechnics and full speed car stunts. NYU, overly concerned about insurance and safety, was known to show up on set to make sure the students were following the rules. Rather than put up with that, he made his movie 3000 miles away in Hollywood where they couldn't get to him. The result was his first film, "The Dead Enders," which he wrote, directed, and starred in. The film received a Glass Award from the Hollywood Reel Independent Film Festival.
In conjunction with his studies, Sam began working on the Cartoon Network show, "Sonic Boom," where he started as an editor. After graduation, he wrote several episodes of the show while continuing his editorial duties. The first episode that he wrote, "Eggman the Auteur," was selected by executive producer Evan Bailey to represent the show around the world. It was screened at The Karelian Children's Film Festival (Russia) Spike & Mike's Festival of Animation (USA), Arte Non Stop Festival (Argentina), ComicPalooza (USA), and The LA Shorts Festival (USA). It was the opening film that kicked off the inaugural TromAnimation Festival, where Sam was awarded the Troma Diploma.
In addition to working for Sega, Sandak has worked as a writer for Hasbro, Netflix, and DC Comics.
Sandak is working as a producer with Bryan Singer at Bad Hat Harry Productions, where he serves as Vice President.
