Sean Covel is a Los Angeles-based Film and Television Producer who grew up in the Black Hills of South Dakota.  Covel’s credits include; 

Beneath for Paramount Pictures, The 12 Dogs of Christmas directed by Academy Award Winner, Keith Merrill, and the iconic independent film, Napoleon Dynamite.  Together, Covel’s films have won multiple awards, generated over one-quarter-billion dollars in revenue internationally and gotten nerds prom dates across the globe.  He very much wishes that would’ve been the case when he was in high school.  

 

Covel travels the globe on various film shoots, but maintains close ties to his small-town midwestern roots.  In 2015 he founded The 12 Days of Pizza charitable program, which supplies food insecure families with elementary school children consistent meals across the Christmas break. In its first year, the program provided 144 meals to Black Hills area families. Within the first 3 years the program grew to provide over 12,000 meals. 

 

Additionally, Covel’s new children’s book; Porter the Hoarder and the Ransacked Room has been developed into an interactive reading initiative for elementary aged kids. 

 

With the help of the United Way, Black Hills Reads, and Black Hills Special Services, over 60,000 copies of the book will be given free of charge to 1st grade students, teachers and libraries across South Dakota. The books are accompanied by a reading program designed to create parent engagement at home, and boost grade level reading successes.  

 

Covel holds an undergraduate degree in Broadcast Management and Acting from the University of Nebraska at Kearney, and a Masters of Fine Arts from the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts, where he guest lectures each spring.   Covel enjoys traveling, keynote speaking, and lecturing at universities and film festivals internationally, but he hangs his nunchucks in Deadwood, SD.