Dean Cundey

The cinematographer I looked up was Dean Cundey, he has worked on same famous films that include Jurassic Park (Spielberg, 1993); Back to the Future Trilogy (Zemeckis, 1985-1990) and Halloween (Carpenter, 1978). He was big into cinematography and he knew it was his passion and he continues that passion to this day.

            He was born in 1946, in Alhambra, California and even being in elementary school he loved to read books and magazines on cinematography. Also, what he did during those days was he would build miniature sets and film his smaller films until he attended California State University for two years then UCLA Film School until 1970. During that time he worked on two Roger Corman productions and afterwards he got experience working as a gaffer and cameraman during the times he was doing small projects and television shows like No Mercy Man (Vance, 1973); Bare Knuckles (1977); Creature from the Black Lake (1976) and other low budget horror films.

            These films later caught the attention of John Carpenter and would work with Cundey and make Halloween (Carpenter, 1978). In this film, he would perform a new camera trick called the Steadicam and he would use this in many of his later films. Him and John Carpenter went on to do many more films that include The Fog (1980), Escape from New York (1981) The Thing (1982) and Big Trouble in Little China (1986). He would then get noticed by Robert Zemeckis and later Steven Spielberg and continued making other films including Hook (Spielberg, 1991); Jurassic Park (Spielberg, 1993); Back to the Future (Zemeckis, 1985-1990) and Who Framed Roger Rabbit (Zemeckis, 1988). He is also a member of the American Society of Cinematographers and has been nominated for various awards including the Academy Awards.   

            He has done many new innovative ways of using the camera and one of his great examples is the steadicam. Which what he did was he rigged the camera to shoot several lengthy and elaborate moving shots, like in the beginning of Halloween when we are first introduced to the character of Michael Myers. This was then changed to the Panaglide which is now owned by Panavision. Also in Back to the Future he was involved with ILM inventing a way using motion control technology and optical compositing to blend practical and visual effects to film what Zemeckis was looking for in the film. An example of this would be in BTTF II when shooting the flying DeLorean in future Hill Valley there was a street lamp that was used to divide the shots using visual effects then the car would become a live car. Another invention he worked on Who Framed Roger Rabbit where he helped design the VistaFlex motion control for blending the optically composited animated rabbit to practical footage. Finally, he was very knowledgeable in traditional lighting techniques help with the unison of Jurassic Park to make sure the lights were perfect so then we could actually see the dinosaurs. Even Spielberg mentions that “Dean had great ideas about how to light the dinosaurs to make us think we are actually seeing them with edgier light making Stan Winston’s dinosaurs look larger and more ferocious than before.”

            Lighting was another big thing in the film Halloween he always used light as a way to show the story with surprising and frightening suspense. Like when the character Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) discovers her friends are dead and the whole room is pitch black no light whatsoever and we then see a white face that focuses are attention and slowly is attacking Laurie. It gives the audience a frightening encounter as the camera reacts to the change in lighting. Instead what he did was he decided to use a blue gel like substance on the rig and aimed it towards the figure. Another example of his lighting is in Carpenter’s 1982 film The Thing. What light trick he did in this film was he wanted to give the real human characters an eye light, to add depth to that person’s eyes as a way of showing that characters true identity. As you watch the film next time look at the alien imposter humans their eyes do not show it. Also, in The Thing when Russell’s character is testing the blood of the last remaining survivors he does a close-up of his hand with the petri dish as sort of a gag for later in the film. What he did with this shot was it increases paranoia up until when the imposter is revealed it makes us jump. These small details helped most of his career with trying to achieve suspense in most films he has done.       

            Dean Cundey has also had an impact of the cast and crew throughout the cinemas and has astonished most filmmakers to this day. Kurt Russell quotes that “Bob was looking for a keeled cinematographer to shoot Romancing the Stone (Zemeckis, 1984). He wanted someone who had a great temperament and abilities, and that’s Dean.” This cinematographer has been very influential in cinematography and very important to most film historians as well. Through his use of light, new ways of using the camera and technical aspects of it and how he is a great collaborator to many.     

Works Cited

“Biography.” IMDb, IMDb.com, www.imdb.com/name/nm0005678/bio?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm. Accessed 24 Sept. 2017.

Oppenheimer, Jean. “The American Society of Cinematographers.” The ASC – American Cinematographer: Cool, Calm, Creative, theasc.com/ac_magazine/February2014/DeanCundeyASC/page1.html. Accessed 24 Sept. 2017.

Walker, Christopher Daniel. “Cinematography – Dean Cundey, ASC – CineNation – Medium.” Medium, CineNation, 19 Feb. 2016, medium.com/cinenation-show/cinematography-dean-cundey-asc-9f67ea1bfb0d. Accessed 24 Sept. 2017.