Sam Hill has worked his way up through the ranks, beginning as a production assistant and grip in the early 1990s. He established himself as a reliable second and first assistant director on a variety of TV series and feature films over the subsequent years, including notable successes such as "Cruel Intentions," a salacious tale of adolescent sexual machinations. He served as a long-running first assistant director on Joss Whedon's extremely popular "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," a slightly campy teenage action-horror series that brought Hill back into collaboration with Sarah Michelle Gellar, whom he'd worked with previously on "Cruel Intentions." Hill's biggest break came when he joined the team at "CSI: Miami," a spin-off about a forensics unit in Miami that proved to be even more successful than the original series. He began as a first assistant director but quickly demonstrated he had greater creative contributions to make. In 2005, Hill became a regular producer and director on "CSI: Miami."