Joel Gallen

Who is Joel Gallen?

Joel Gallen is an American film director, producer, screenwriter, and founder and president of Tenth Planet Productions.

Gallen has produced and directed many live television events and has won numerous awards, including an Emmy, Peabody, PGA and DGA award for producing and directing "America: A Tribute to Heroes" immediately following the 9/11 attacks. He has executive produced and directed the last ten Comedy Central Roasts, including the most recent roast of Roseanne. Gallen has directed and produced more than a dozen Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremonies. From 2007 through 2010, Gallen was the executive producer and director of CNN Heroes.

Gallen is the executive producer of two prime-time reality-competition series: The Sing-Off, the group a cappella competition series,; and America’s Best Dance Crew, the reality-competition series for MTV. Gallen was an executive at MTV in the early 90's where he produced The MTV Video Music Awards for 5 years and created The MTV Movie Awards. He went on to produce 14 of the first 15 MTV Movie Awards shows between 1992 and 2006. Gallen conceived and directed many of the Movie Award short comedic films during that period that featured Ben Stiller, Tom Cruise, Jack Black, Will Ferrell, Justin Timberlake, Jimmy Fallon, Vince Vaughn and many others.