Dean Semler

Dean Semler

Birth : 1943-05-26, Renmark, South Australia, Australia

History

Dean Semler is an Australian cinematographer. Over his career, he has worked as a cinematographer, camera operator, director, second unit director, and assistant director. He is a three-time recipient of the AACTA Award for Best Cinematography and an Academy Award winner. He is a member of both the Australian Cinematographers Society (ACS) and the American Society of Cinematographers (ASC). In 2002 he was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia (AM). From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Profile

Dean Semler

Movies

Summer Gold
Director of Photography
Four best friends are sent to an off-the-grid summer camp; no phones, no devices, no WiFi. There, the kids encounter four suspicious Camp Counselors, uncover the truth about Civil War gold that’s been missing for almost 200 years, and discover there’s a whole world waiting to greet them – if they just look up to see it.
Playing with Fire
Director of Photography
A crew of rugged firefighters meet their match when attempting to rescue three rambunctious kids.
Maelstrom: The Odyssey of Waterworld
Himself
The long and hard road that the makers of Waterworld had to face when making the, then, highest budgeted film.
Sandy Wexler
Director of Photography
When a hapless but dedicated talent manager signs his first client who actually has talent, his career finally starts to take off.
Road War: The Making of 'The Road Warrior'
Self
Retrospective on the making of "Mad Max 2".
The Do-Over
Director of Photography
The life of a bank manager is turned upside down when a friend from his past manipulates him into faking his own death and taking off on an adventure.
The Ridiculous 6
Director of Photography
When his long-lost outlaw father returns, Tommy "White Knife" Stockburn goes on an adventure-filled journey across the Old West with his five brothers.
The Last Witch Hunter
Director of Photography
The modern world holds many secrets, but by far the most astounding is that witches still live among us; vicious supernatural creatures intent on unleashing the Black Death upon the world and putting an end to the human race once and for all. Armies of witch hunters have battled this unnatural enemy for centuries, including Kaulder, a valiant warrior who many years ago slayed the all-powerful Witch Queen, decimating her followers in the process. In the moments right before her death, the Queen cursed Kaulder with immortality, forever separating him from his beloved wife and daughter. Today, Kaulder is the last living hunter who has spent his immortal life tracking down rogue witches, all the while yearning for his long-lost family.
Mad Max: Fury Road
Thanks
An apocalyptic story set in the furthest reaches of our planet, in a stark desert landscape where humanity is broken, and most everyone is crazed fighting for the necessities of life. Within this world exist two rebels on the run who just might be able to restore order.
Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2
Director of Photography
Security guard Paul Blart is headed to Las Vegas to attend a Security Guard Expo with his teenage daughter Maya before she departs for college. While at the convention, he inadvertently discovers a heist - and it's up to Blart to apprehend the criminals.
Maleficent
Director of Photography
A beautiful, pure-hearted young woman, Maleficent has an idyllic life growing up in a peaceable forest kingdom, until one day when an invading army threatens the harmony of the land. Maleficent rises to be the land's fiercest protector, but she ultimately suffers a ruthless betrayal – an act that begins to turn her heart into stone. Bent on revenge, Maleficent faces an epic battle with the invading King's successor and, as a result, places a curse upon his newborn infant Aurora. As the child grows, Maleficent realizes that Aurora holds the key to peace in the kingdom – and to Maleficent's true happiness as well.
Heaven Is for Real
Director of Photography
The true story of the 4-year old son of a small-town pastor who, during emergency surgery, slips from consciousness and enters heaven. When he awakes, he recounts his experiences on the other side.
Grudge Match
Director of Photography
A pair of aging boxing rivals are coaxed out of retirement to fight one final bout -- 30 years after their last match.
Parental Guidance
Director of Photography
Artie and Diane agree to look after their three grandkids when their type-A helicopter parents need to leave town for work. Problems arise when the kids' 21st-century behavior collides with Artie and Diane's old-school methods.
In the Land of Blood and Honey
Director of Photography
During the Bosnian War, Danijel, a soldier fighting for the Serbs, re-encounters Ajla, a Bosnian who's now a captive in his camp he oversees. Their once promising connection has become ambiguous as their motives have changed.
Secretariat
Director of Photography
Housewife and mother Penny Chenery agrees to take over her ailing father's Virginia-based Meadow Stables, despite her lack of horse-racing knowledge. Against all odds, Chenery - with the help of veteran trainer Lucien Laurin - manages to navigate the male-dominated business, ultimately fostering the first Triple Crown winner in 25 years.
Date Night
Director of Photography
Phil and Claire Foster fear that their mild-mannered relationship may be falling into a stale rut. During their weekly date night, their dinner reservation leads to their being mistaken for a couple of thieves—and now a number of unsavoury characters want Phil and Claire killed.
2012
Director of Photography
Dr. Adrian Helmsley, part of a worldwide geophysical team investigating the effect on the earth of radiation from unprecedented solar storms, learns that the earth's core is heating up. He warns U.S. President Thomas Wilson that the crust of the earth is becoming unstable and that without proper preparations for saving a fraction of the world's population, the entire race is doomed. Meanwhile, writer Jackson Curtis stumbles on the same information. While the world's leaders race to build "arks" to escape the impending cataclysm, Curtis struggles to find a way to save his family. Meanwhile, volcanic eruptions and earthquakes of unprecedented strength wreak havoc around the world.
Appaloosa
Director of Photography
Two friends hired to police a small town that is suffering under the rule of a rancher find their job complicated by the arrival of a young widow.
Get Smart
Director of Photography
When the identities of secret agents from Control are compromised, the Chief promotes hapless but eager analyst Maxwell Smart and teams him with stylish, capable Agent 99, the only spy whose cover remains intact. Can they work together to thwart the evil plans of KAOS and its crafty operative?
I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry
Director of Photography
Firefighters Chuck Ford and Larry Valentine are guy's guys, loyal to the core—which is why when widower Larry asks Chuck to pose as his lover so that he can get domestic partner benefits for his kids, his buddy agrees. However, things get dicey when a bureaucrat comes calling, and the boys are forced to present a picture of domestic bliss.
Apocalypto
Director of Photography
Set in the Mayan civilization, when a man's idyllic presence is brutally disrupted by a violent invading force, he is taken on a perilous journey to a world ruled by fear and oppression where a harrowing end awaits him. Through a twist of fate and spurred by the power of his love for his woman and his family he will make a desperate break to return home and to ultimately save his way of life.
Click
Director of Photography
A married workaholic, Michael Newman doesn't have time for his wife and children, not if he's to impress his ungrateful boss and earn a well-deserved promotion. So when he meets Morty, a loopy sales clerk, he gets the answer to his prayers: a magical remote that allows him to bypass life's little distractions with increasingly hysterical results.
Just My Luck
Director of Photography
Manhattanite Ashley is known to many as the luckiest woman around. After a chance encounter with a down-and-out young man, however, she realizes that she's swapped her fortune for his.
Stealth
Director of Photography
Deeply ensconced in a top-secret military program, three pilots struggle to bring an artificial intelligence program under control ... before it initiates the next world war.
The Longest Yard
Director of Photography
Pro quarter-back, Paul Crewe and former college champion and coach, Nate Scarboro are doing time in the same prison. Asked to put together a team of inmates to take on the guards, Crewe enlists the help of Scarboro to coach the inmates to victory in a football game 'fixed' to turn out quite another way.
The Alamo
Director of Photography
Based on the 1836 standoff between a group of Texan and Tejano men, led by Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie, and Mexican dictator Santa Anna's forces at the Alamo in San Antonio, Texas.
Bruce Almighty
Director of Photography
Bruce Nolan toils as a 'human interest' television reporter in Buffalo, N.Y., but despite his high ratings and the love of his beautiful girlfriend, Bruce remains unfulfilled. At the end of the worst day in his life, he angrily ridicules God—and the Almighty responds, endowing Bruce with all of His divine powers.
Dances with Wolves: The Creation of an Epic
Self
A documentary of the making of Dances with Wolves told through interviews with cast and crew. It describes the financial and production details, scouting locations, the buffalo hunt, the Lakota Sioux, and the recognition and success the film achieved.
We Were Soldiers: Getting It Right
Self
A short documentary about the making of 'We Were Soldiers'.
xXx
Director of Photography
Xander Cage is your standard adrenaline junkie with no fear and a lousy attitude. When the US Government "recruits" him to go on a mission, he's not exactly thrilled. His mission: to gather information on an organization that may just be planning the destruction of the world, led by the nihilistic Yorgi.
We Were Soldiers
Director of Photography
The story of the first major battle of the American phase of the Vietnam War and the soldiers on both sides that fought it.
Dragonfly
Director of Photography
A grieving doctor is being contacted by his late wife through his patient's near death experiences.
D-Tox
Director of Photography
A disgraced FBI agent with a drinking problem joins nine other troubled law enforcement officers at an isolated detox clinic in the wilds of Wyoming. But the therapeutic sanctuary becomes a nightmarish hellhole when a major snowstorm cuts off the clinic from the outside world and enables a killer on the inside to get busy.
Heartbreakers
Director of Photography
Max and Page are a brilliant mother/daughter con team who have their grift down to a fine science. Max targets wealthy, willing men and marries them. Page then seduces them, and Max catches her husband in the act. Then it's off to palimony city and the next easy mark.
Nutty Professor II: The Klumps
Director of Photography
The hilarity begins when professor Sherman Klump finds romance with fellow DNA specialist, Denise Gaines, and discovers a brilliant formula that reverses aging. But Sherman's thin and obnoxious alter ego, Buddy Love, wants out...and a big piece of the action. And when Buddy gets loose, things get seriously nutty.
The Bone Collector
Director of Photography
Rookie cop, Amelia Donaghy reluctantly teams with Lincoln Rhyme – formerly the department's top homicide detective but now paralyzed as a result of a spinal injury – to catch a grisly serial killer dubbed 'The Bone Collector'. The murderer's special signature is to leave tantalizing clues based on the grim remains of his crimes.
The Patriot
Director
A deadly virus threatens to wipe out an entire Rocky Mountain town, leaving the town doctor to find some way to escape the soldiers who enforce the town's quarantine and devise an antidote. Matters take a more deadly turn after the physician is captured by a dangerously unstable band of militia extremists.
Firestorm
Director
Firefighter Jesse Graves has to save ornithologist Jennifer and other people caught in a forest fire, which was set up by the lawyer of convicted killer Earl Shaye, who escaped from the prison with several of his inmates posing as firefighters to recover $37,000,000 in stashed loot.
Trojan War
Cinematography
Brad is about to hook up with the girl of his dreams, but runs into a problem, no condom. So Brad sets out into the night to find one, running into many obstacles along the way, while not knowing his best friend, Leah is in love with him.
Gone Fishin'
Director of Photography
Two fishing fanatics get in trouble when their fishing boat gets stolen while on a trip.
Waterworld
Director of Photography
In a futuristic world where the polar ice caps have melted and made Earth a liquid planet, a beautiful barmaid rescues a mutant seafarer from a floating island prison. They escape, along with her young charge, Enola, and sail off aboard his ship.
The Cowboy Way
Director of Photography
Two championship rodeo partners travel to New York to find their missing friend, Nacho Salazar who went missing there.
The Three Musketeers
Director of Photography
D'Artagnan travels to Paris hoping to become a musketeer, one of the French king's elite bodyguards, only to discover that the corps has been disbanded by conniving Cardinal Richelieu, who secretly hopes to usurp the throne. Fortunately, Athos, Porthos and Aramis have refused to lay down their weapons and continue to protect their king. D'Artagnan joins with the rogues to expose Richelieu's plot against the crown.
Last Action Hero
Director of Photography
Following the death of his father, young Danny Madigan takes comfort in watching action movies featuring the indestructible Los Angeles cop Jack Slater. After being given a magic ticket by theater manager Nick, Danny is sucked into the screen and bonds with Slater. When evil fictional villain Benedict gets his hands on the ticket and enters the real world, Danny and Jack must follow and stop him.
Super Mario Bros.
Director of Photography
Mario and Luigi, plumbers from Brooklyn, find themselves in an alternate universe where evolved dinosaurs live in hi-tech squalor. They're the only hope to save our universe from invasion by the dino dictator, Koopa.
The Power of One
Cinematography
PK, an English orphan terrorized for his family's political beliefs in Africa, turns to his only friend, a kindly world-wise prisoner, Geel Piet. Geel teaches him how to box with the motto “fight with your fists and lead with your heart”. As he grows to manhood, PK uses these words to take on the system and the injustices he sees around him - and finds that one person really can make a difference.
City Slickers
Director of Photography
Three New York businessmen decide to take a "Wild West" vacation that turns out not to be the relaxing vacation they had envisioned.
Baruya Muka Archival
Cinematography
A detailed record of the first stage male initiation ceremony of the Baruya of the Eastern Highlands of Papua New Guinea. A group of nine to 12 year old boys are followed through their first initiation - from the last days with their families through their nose-piercing and other rituals and ordeals to the final feast given in their honour. It is a tough time, the beginning of a ten-year journey to warrior and manhood.
Young Guns II
Director of Photography
Three of the original five "young guns" — Billy the Kid (Emilio Estevez), Jose Chavez y Chavez (Lou Diamond Phillips), and Doc Scurlock (Kiefer Sutherland) — return in Young Guns, Part 2, which is the story of Billy the Kid and his race to safety in Old Mexico while being trailed by a group of government agents led by Pat Garrett.
Impulse
Director of Photography
Regularly working alone undercover with a vice squad boss she dislikes as much as he dislikes her, Lottie Mason is living pretty much on the edge. An assignment helping out the Assistant D.A. may be the start of a serious relationship but then, tired and disillusioned after a job one night, she finds herself accepting a proposition in a bar that leads rapidly into a web of murder and deceit.
Dances with Wolves
Director of Photography
Wounded Civil War soldier, John Dunbar tries to commit suicide—and becomes a hero instead. As a reward, he's assigned to his dream post, a remote junction on the Western frontier, and soon makes unlikely friends with the local Sioux tribe.
K-9
Director of Photography
The extravagant cop Michael Dooley needs some help to fight a drug dealer who has tried to kill him. A "friend" gives him a dog named Jerry Lee (Officer Lewis), who has been trained to smell drugs. With his help, Dooley sets out to put his enemy behind the bars, but Jerry Lee has a personality of his own and works only when he wants to. On the other hand, the dog is quite good at destroying Dooley's car, house and sex-life...
Dead Calm
Cinematography
An Australian couple take a sailing trip in the Pacific to forget about a terrible accident. While on the open sea, in dead calm weather conditions, they come across a ship with one survivor who is not at all what he seems.
Farewell to the King
Director of Photography
An American soldier who escapes the execution of his comrades by Japanese soldiers in Borneo during WWII becomes the leader of a personal empire among the headhunters in this war story told in the style of Joseph Conrad and Rudyard Kipling. The American is reluctant to rejoin the fight against the Japanese on the urging of a British commando team but conducts a war of vengeance when the Japanese attack his adopted people.
Cocktail
Director of Photography
After being discharged from the Army, Brian Flanagan moves back to Queens and takes a job in a bar run by Doug Coughlin, who teaches Brian the fine art of bar-tending. Brian quickly becomes a patron favorite with his flashy drink-mixing style, and Brian adopts his mentor's cynical philosophy on life and goes for the money.
Young Guns
Director of Photography
A group of young gunmen, led by Billy the Kid, become deputies to avenge the murder of the rancher who became their benefactor. But when Billy takes their authority too far, they become the hunted.
The Lighthorsemen
Director of Photography
Palestine, 1917. The British advance has been stopped by the Turkish line running from Gaza to Beersheba. The latest attack on Gaza has failed. The attacking forces included a regiment of Australian mounted infantry, the Light Horse... Lighthorseman Frank is wounded in a skirmish with Bedouin. He is replaced by a young soldier, Dave, who proves to be a crack shot, but reluctant to fire at the enemy. Dave proves himself during a German biplane attack. Recuperating in hospital, he meets a sympathetic nurse, Anne... The regiment is called upon for a bold flanking attack on Beersheba. But how do you convince the Turks the main attack will come at Gaza? And how do you attack across a desert without water?
Going Sane
Director of Photography
A business executive leaves his wife and family when he discovers that he only has a short time left to live.
Bullseye
Director of Photography
In the 1860s, two friends, Harry and Bluey, steal a thousand head of cattle and trek it across country from Queensland to Adelaide.
Passion Flower
Director of Photography
The movers and shakers in Singapore get involved in behind-the-scenes political and business activities, romantic entanglements, and murder. Nicol Williamson plays the wealthiest man in Southeast Asia. Barbara Hershey is his married antagonistic daughter who starts an affair with an ambitious American banker (Bruce Boxleitner) and who also seems to have the attention of her father.
The Coca-Cola Kid
Additional Dialogue
An eccentric marketing guru visits a Coca-Cola subsidiary in Australia to try and increase market penetration. He finds zero penetration in a valley owned by an old man who makes his own soft drinks, and visits the valley to see why. After "the Kid's" persistence is tested he's given a tour of the man's plant, and they begin talking of a joint venture. Things get more complicated when the Coca-Cola man begins falling in love with his temporary secretary, who seems to have connections to the valley.
The Coca-Cola Kid
Director of Photography
An eccentric marketing guru visits a Coca-Cola subsidiary in Australia to try and increase market penetration. He finds zero penetration in a valley owned by an old man who makes his own soft drinks, and visits the valley to see why. After "the Kid's" persistence is tested he's given a tour of the man's plant, and they begin talking of a joint venture. Things get more complicated when the Coca-Cola man begins falling in love with his temporary secretary, who seems to have connections to the valley.
Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome
Director of Photography
Mad Max becomes a pawn in a decadent oasis of a technological society, and when exiled, becomes the deliverer of a colony of children.
The Coolangatta Gold
Additional Photography
Steve Lucas is a nineteen year old who is filled with the burning resentment of being forced to live in his brother's shadow. His brother Adam, is burdened by his father's desire for glory, and must win The Coolangatta Gold Tri-Aquathon, It is the greatest endurance test of them all: a marathon involving a 20 kilometer beach run, 6 kilometer swim and a 17 kilometer surf ski from Surfers Paradise along the golden arc of beach to Coolangatta and back to the start. The Coolangatta Gold is a story of human endeavor and endurance against overwhelming odds.
Razorback
Director of Photography
In the Australian outback a vicious wild boar kills and causes havoc to a small community.
The Dismissal
Director of Photography
The drama surrounding the dismissal of Mr. Gough Whitlam as the Labor Prime Minister of Australia - on 11 November, 1975 - by the then Governor-General of Australia, Sir John Kerr - and the subsequent installation, in Parliament, of the Liberal 'caretaker government' and Mr. Malcolm Fraser as the 'caretaker' Prime Minister.
Kitty and the Bagman
Cinematography
Notorious Australian flop set in the Roaring 20s Sydney follows Kitty O'Rourke who, after her thug husband ends up in jail, becomes a tough gangster on her own, befriends a crooked cop called The Bagman and takes on the competition.
Mad Max 2
Director of Photography
Max Rockatansky returns as the heroic loner who drives the dusty roads of a postapocalyptic Australian Outback in an unending search for gasoline. Arrayed against him and the other scraggly defendants of a fuel-depot encampment are the bizarre warriors commanded by the charismatic Lord Humungus, a violent leader whose scruples are as barren as the surrounding landscape.
Hoodwink
Director of Photography
Hoodwink is based on the true story of an Australian con artist who briefly won the hearts of the media (if not the authorities). John Hargreaves stars as a criminal serving time in a New South Wales prison. He's not partial to the physical labor required of the convicts, so he hits upon a labor-saving plan. Hargreaves pretends to be totally blind, thus lightening his work load....and carries off the hoax for years.
Saturday
Director
A shearer, his wife and six children leave their farmhouse at daybreak for the week's big event - a Saturday visit to the nearest town, Lake Cargelligo. There's a trip to the barber, icecream for the kids, the weekly football match and a beer at the pub. Come nightfall, it's either a movie or the local dance. This beautifully shot film by Academy Award winner Dean Semler captures all the atmosphere of a weekly ritual repeated in country towns right across Australia.
Do I Have to Kill My Child?
Director of Photography
A disturbing drama about a young mother who physically abuses her baby. Feeling overwhelmed and aware that she's not coping after the birth of her third child, she sends desperate cries for help. But her mother, husband, neighbour and clinic sister do not recognise the seriousness of the situation until the baby ends up in hospital with a fractured skull. A heart-wrenching film that illustrates the experiences of many women who suffer from post-natal depression.
A Steam Train Passes
Director of Photography
Generally regarded as Australia's finest railway film and winner of many awards the world over, A Steam Train Passes is a nostalgic, imaginative essay on one of the majestic but now retired C38 class steam locomotives.