Meet Sam Wendel, CCE workshop trainer and storyteller

The story of Sam Wendel’s life would make a good movie. And he’d be just the person to take that story and turn it into a script. At least he ought to be, he’s been in the business for over 35 years and was mentored by the very best, like Norman Lear, a legendary writer and producer who created a number of ground-breaking shows including All in the Family. Sam worked alongside Lear for 5 fascinating years. So he knows that a great script needs more than just a good idea, character development, conflict, dialogue, etc.  

There’s an art and a science to writing scripts and that’s what Sam teaches in his screenwriting course at CCE. He starts by helping students communicate their story in a one-page pitch, then expanding to an outline and finally urging their ideas into a ten-page treatment. He guides them through the history of TV and film and reveals the challenges of the business itself: how to find an agent, shop out the script and create a bible to present their TV and Netflix ideas.  It’s tough work making a good idea into a great script but Sam loves the process because good stories that have the potential to find a home continue to come through the class.

These days, Sam is working on a couple of scripts, bouncing back and forth between LA and Québec, getting laughs at Sunday Night Improv in Montréal and teaching at CCE. He’s taught the same course at other institutions but at CCE, he finds a crowd of students from all walks of life who are eager to learn and committed to the process. And through them, Sam never stops learning himself. Who knows, maybe his next script will be an offbeat comedy about a prof who teaches screenwriting to students from around the world. Want to find out how that story ends? Spoiler alert! It has a happy ending. Sign up for Sam’s class Screenwriting.  

Fun fact: Sam is the father of Grammy nominee, Ben Wendel, who tells truly spellbinding stories with his sax.