Mikael Salomon

Salomon has been hailed for revolutionizing underwater lighting with his work in "The Abyss." He overcame the previously daunting challenge of ensuring a visual match between complex underwater scenes and those shot in tanks and sound stages. Impressed by Salomon's work on the Cameron film, Steven Spielberg and Kathleen Kennedy hired him to photograph Spielberg's "Always" (1989) thereby beginning his association with Amblin Entertainment. Kennedy showed him a screenplay for "A Far Off Place," an adaptation of two books by Sir Laurens van der Post--"A Far Off Place" and "A Story Like the Wind." Salomon immediately wanted to direct it. His next assignment was "Arachnophobia" (1990), the first feature directed by Amblin co-founder Frank Marshall. Produced by Disney's Hollywood Pictures division, this film helped set the stage for Salomon's directorial debut on "A Far Off Place" (1993), a Disney/Amblin co-production filmed in Zimbabwe and Namibia. This ecologically minded tale of survival in the African desert was reminiscent of Nicholas Roeg's solo directorial debut, "Walkabout" (1971).