[3] Freeman attended the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he worked for the campus newspaper, the Daily Nexus.
[4] While working for the Daily Nexus, his article entitled "Violence, arson continue in L.A." won Columbia Scholastic Press Association's 1993 Collegiate Gold Circle Award for news writing and third place in the California Intercollegiate Press Awards.
[7] The movie went on to win Sundance Film Festival's 1996 Grand Jury Prize Dramatic, but more importantly for Freeman it was during this time he befriended actor Brendan Sexton III, the eventual star of Hurricane Streets.
[7][8] Hurricane Streets served as Freeman's thesis at New York University, against instruction to avoid using feature films.
In 2003, he helmed the independent feature Piggy Banks, which starred Gabriel Mann, Kelli Garner, and Tom Sizemore.
Freeman produced the MTV reality TV show Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County.