Ian Sander

After graduating with a B.S. from the University of Southern California and attending Loyola Law School, Sander began his career as an actor. He worked in American and European television, movies and theater, including co-starring in the Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway show No Place to Be Somebody.

Transitioning into production, Sander's earliest producing credits include the theatrical film noir thriller D.O.A. and the feature Everybody's All-American.

Sander was Executive Producer and Director of the hit CBS drama Ghost Whisperer, and he co-authored the show's companion book, Ghost Whisperer Spirit Guide. He also co-created the award-winning Ghost Whisperer: The Other Side webseries.[1]

Sander's other television executive producer credits include Profiler, The Beast, New York News, and For the People, all of which he also directed, and Brimstone. Sander was a producer of the Emmy Award-winning series Equal Justice and the Emmy Award-winning two-hour series pilot I'll Fly Away.

While Sander was executive producer of I'll Fly Away, it was the recipient of many honors, including Emmy Awards, a Peabody Award, Humanities Awards, Golden Globe Awards, The American Television Awards, Writers Guild of America Awards, Producers Guild of America Award, Directors Guild of America Awards, NAACP Image Awards, the Television Critics Association Awards, and Anti-Defamation League Artistic Achievement Award. In honor of his achievements with the series, Sander was named Television Producer of the Year by the Producers Guild of America.

Among his television movie executive producer credits are Ali, An American Hero, the Emmy Award-winning Stolen Babies, Kansas, Chasing the Dragon, which he directed, and I’ll Fly Away: Then and Now, which he also directed, and for which he garnered a nomination for Outstanding Directorial Achievement for a Dramatic Special by the Directors Guild of America.

Sander (along with his wife Kim Moses) produced Hollywood and Civil Rights: Destination Freedom, a live event for the Democratic National Committee during the 2000 Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles.[2]

For ten years, Sander created and produced entertainment event programming for the Internet, including Confessions of a Desperate Housewife for ABC.com and Electronic Entertainment Expo Internet events for UGO.com.[3]

Sander and Kim Moses developed and served as executive producers on the special Psychic in Suburbia for the Style Network.[4]

In addition to producing and directing, Ian Sander wrote the feature scripts The Surgeon and Home of Champions.[5]

He was also a professor at the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts.

Sander co-created (with Kim Moses) the Total Engagement Experience,[6] a new business and creative model for television, which uses the television show as a component of a broader multi-platform entertainment experience that includes the internet, publishing, music, mobile, DVDs, video games and more, establishing an infinity loop driving ratings and increasing revenue streams.[7]

Sander and Kim Moses participated in a panel on "Episodic TV: Elements of a Hit" at the Produced By Conference in 2009. Sander spoke at the National Association of Broadcasters in 2010 on the panel "Unboxing Advertising and Entertainment: Building a Transmedia Experience".[8]

Sander was married to Kim Moses, and they had two children, Aaron and Declan. He died on May 3, 2016, at the age of 68.

• Ian Sander at IMDb