Back in the late eighties Dean was part of a team of three UCLA film school alum, including Allison Anders and Kurt Voss, who over the course of four years pieced together through blood, sweat and tears the now punk cult feature Border Radio, which was a part of the rebirth of indie films at the time. All three co directed and co wrote. Dean also served as the film’s cinematographer. It was nominated for best first feature at the very first Spirit Awards in 1989. Over the years it has earned a loyal following and is now on Criterion Classics. It recently screened at The UCLA Hammer Museum to a packed house.

In the 90’s Dean was cinematographer on the Sundance break out Gas Food Lodging directed by his Border Radio collaborator Allison Anders. Both the film and the cinematography were up for awards at the festival, as well as nominated for best feature at the 1993 Spirit Awards, and it is now also considered a classic of American independent cinema.

The birth of Feeling Randy actually occurred that year at Sundance where Dean ruminated on the idea of a Gas Food Lodging for boys, remembering the time he went to The Mustang Ranch brothel with his high school buddies, attempting to prove to himself that he was actually heterosexual (didn’t stick).

Over the next few decades he was cinematographer on several dozen features, TV shows, music videos...while slowly deliberately writing, re writing and re re writing Feeling Randy. Never quite happy with it, he put it on the back shelf.

During the pandemic, Dean thought he should give Feeling Randy one more draft. With maturity he was able to cut out the irrelevant, and focus on the heart of the main character and it finally worked. He decided if not now when, so he sold his mountain cabin and put up the funds himself and the rest is history.

Dean is currently developing a new project about a Boy Band loosely based on the Lou Pearlman/’N Sync fiasco.