Dean Cundey

Cundey studied theater arts at UCLA before moving into low-budget filmmaking, where he met a young John Carpenter early in both of their careers; the partnership that followed shaped both of their reputations for years afterward.

Carpenter's regular director of photography and later Spielberg's on Jurassic Park, he became a master of anamorphic dread and invisible effects photography alike. He shot several of Carpenter's earliest, lowest-budget films before either had much of a reputation, developing the wide-frame, deep-focus style — actors and threats sharing the same frame without a cut — that became a genre signature.

He later became one of Robert Zemeckis's regular collaborators as well, shooting the Back to the Future trilogy and Who Framed Roger Rabbit, giving him a rare filmography spanning horror, blockbuster fantasy and hard science fiction alike, and making him one of the few cinematographers trusted with visually complex effects work across every register of studio filmmaking.