Bio

Joni Varner has been a professional educator in the field of single- and multi-camera production and media studies for over 30 years at Los Angeles City College , California State University, Northridge, and Pasadena City College and has served as chair of the LACC Cinema/TV department. Under her leadership, the LACC Cinema/TV department was granted two million dollars by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. She shepherded the installation of the state-of-the-art multi-camera LACC HFPA Dick Clark TV studio and developed extensive new curriculum including a CSU transfer media degree AA-T.  She has taught over one hundred sections of LACC Cinema 1: Introduction to Motion Picture Production. Prior to that, she worked in broadcast television as a producer, director and writer of TV commercials, industrial videos, telethons and live TV shows. She made her first paycheck in the commercial broadcast industry at age 17 and has worked continuously since.

Joni studied and exhibited experimental video art at SUNY/Buffalo. She was awarded a First Place (SE Region) in the AFI National Student Video Festival in the Experimental Category. Her work has been permanently curated into the Miami/Dade Library collection, and exhibited at the Mint Museum and North Carolina Museum of Art.