Joey Severini

Joey Severini (born Joseph Michael Severini) is a writer, director, editor and producer born in Sarasota, Florida. His parents, Sandy and Ron Severini, were professional clowns at Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. Joey spent his early childhood years in the circus and was immediately brought into the act as the youngest clown in Ringling Bros.' long history. They eventually moved the act to the Ringling-owned "Circus World" and moved to Orlando, FL after his parent's divorce. At age 7, Joey performed stage magic and at age 9 he was featured as the lead actor in the F.H.E. (Family Home Entertainment) video "Be a Clown". Joey began performing stand-up comedy at age 10. Growing up in the 1980s, each week Joey's father brought him to see all of the newest movies at the time, including iconic hits like Back to the Future, Ghostbusters, Gremlins and The Goonies. Joey instantly fell in love with movies and knew he wanted to be a storyteller. After receiving his first video camera at the age of 12, Joey began making short films and formed a kid's comedy film team with his friend Dustin Anderson called "The Skit Kids". He later began working a series of various production jobs at Universal Studios Orlando and the Walt Disney parks. In 1995 Joey created Mental Productions with friend David Batista and made short films for their high school news program. After completing a 2-year TV Productions course in high school and the film and digital media degree in Video Productions at Valencia Community College, Joey wrote and directed his first feature length micro budget indie comedy film, "TONiGHT". Joey joined the Band "GingerVal and the Uteros" while he continued to write and produce shorts for Mental Productions. He began taking comedy writing classes with Kevin Allison, Michael Showalter and Sharon Y. Cobb and eventually took the Editing course at the Edit Center in NYC under instructors Bo Mehrad, Mollie Goldstein, Aaron Yanes, Todd Holmes, Geoffrey Richman and Alan Oxman. Joey began a comedy video sketch team with Brian Christensen called "Evil Dictator School", which was selected as a finalist in the NYTVF comedy central pilot contest in 2012. Joey was an Assistant Editor for the Kathleen Hanna documentary "The Punk Singer", which lead him to be a full-time Assistant Editor at Leftfield Pictures. At Leftfield, Joey worked on such television shows as Pawn Stars, Oddities, American Restoration, Guntucky and Counting Cars. After the birth of his daughter, Anarchy Severini, he began working as a freelance filmmaker and editor for comedians, bands and performers while continuing to write, direct and edit comedies for Mental Productions. He began making the animated comedy series "HONCHOS" with Rory Covey which was accepted into the NYTVF and Kevin Smith's first annual Smodcastle Film Fest. He now lives in Hoboken, NJ with his wife Eliza and daughter where he continues to write, film, edit and produce.