Joe Dea(1953-2025)

Emmy-winning Director Joe Dea's work has been showcased everywhere from the New York Museum of Modern Art to prime time broadcast networks. For the past several years, Dea has been working primarily in the reality television genre. His career began fresh out of Hartford College Art School with video shows at New York's Whitney Museum, The Kitchen, Global Village, and The Optic Nerve. From the New York art video scene, Dea moved to San Francisco to become a founding member and creative force behind VideoWest, a ground-breaking comedy/music video/alternative news production company. During that period, Dea also honed his directing skills in the emerging music video field. Today, much of this early, pioneering work is noted in Rolling Stone Magazine's All-Time Top 100 Videos and Rolling Stone's Music Video Hall of Fame. His video, "Two Triple Cheese" for Commander Cody and the Lost Planet Airmen, resides in the permanent collection of the New York Museum of Modern Art. Dea moved from San Francisco to Los Angeles to work in national television. Since then, he has directed hundreds of hours in genres such as documentary, reality, comedy sketches, live music, drama, and animation. His prime-time network specials for NBC and Fox include: "Masters of Illusion: The Wizards of Special Effects," and "The World's Greatest Stunts." He has directed many segments for broadcast network, syndicated, and cable reality series. As Senior Director of the TLC hit "A Wedding Story," Dea directed 48 cinema verite half-hour episodes, shot all over the United States. Recently Dea directed "MotorSport Ranch" - a reality racing series airing on INHD.