Before Fade In

Alana Sanko is an award-winning writer and producer who has written and developed for comedy, drama and animated series, as well as TV movie and network and cable pilots across multiple platforms. Her Nickelodeon series, Just for Kicks, which she created, developed and produced with Executive Producer Whoopi Goldberg, won her a WGA Award and the animated MTV series Spy Groove, which she was Head Writer on, received an Annie Nomination by the International Animated Film Society, ASIFA-Hollywood.

In addition to working on many writing staffs over the years, Alana has written and produced a number of original pilots, including the ABC comedy, See Jayne Run with Brillstein Entertainment. Additional writing credits include: the Disney Channel Original Movie Get a Clue starring Lindsay Lohan, HBO Family’s animated series, A Little Curious, ABC’s Life’s Work, and the acclaimed CBS television series Murphy Brown, which was named on the WGA’s list of 101 Best TV Series. She has also written for numerous children’s series and was a Consulting Producer for Half Life, the limited series winner of the NYC women’s initiative screenwriting competition #GreenlightHer! Alana recently made her directing debut on the short film, The Happiness Intervention, which is currently in post-production. Follow it on Instagram @TheHappinessIntervention.

Alana is the Creative Episodic Lab Director for the Athena Film Festival and a 2026 Artemis Rising Foundation Filmmaker Fellow at Barnard College. She also teaches at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, Purchase College’s School of Film and Media Studies and the Sundance Collab. She is a proud member of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, Broadcast Music, Inc., Société des Auteurs et Compositeurs Dramatiques, New York Women in Film & Television and the Writers Guild of America.