Dean Semler on AllMovie

Australian cinematographer Dean Semler worked the "reality" side of the street in newsreels and documentaries before moving into fictional features in 1976. Semler's first movie of note was Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (1981), in which he convincingly conveyed a parched, dusty, post-apocalyptic world. Mad Max 2 proved to be Semler's ticket to Hollywood, where he received an Oscar nomination for his deft blending of actual western landscapes with optical effects and glass shots in Kevin Costner's Dances With Wolves (1990). More recently, Semler has manned the cameras for Costner's Waterworld (1995), an obscenely expensive effort that many observers labeled "Mad Max on water."