In 2013, he was awarded a Lifetime Career Achievement in Television by the ASC.
Now with two Emmy nominations for his work on the acclaimed FOX series 24, in 20 respectively, Charters is also a member of the Directors Guild of America. In 2004, Charters became a member of the American Society of Cinematographers (ASC), marking a significant milestone in his career as a cinematographer. The film even bagged Mark Irwin, ASC a Genie Award (the Canadian equivalent of an Emmy) for Best Achievement in Cinematography. The next fifteen years were spent globetrotting through South American jungles to Cold War affected Soviet Russia.Ĭharters soon gravitated towards drama and in 1986 became second camera operator on a feature called Youngblood, starring a young Rob Lowe as a teenage ice hockey player trying to make a name in the Canadian Junior Hockey circuit. Stephen Goldblatt, ASC.Īfter graduation, Charters worked on commercials in London then after a move to Toronto, found employ shooting documentaries for a Toronto-based Canadian network. As fate would have it, the film earned Charters a place at the new film school at London’s Royal College of Art in London-past alumni include directors Tony Scott, Richard Longcraine, and D.P.
During this time, he made his first solo film, a black and white short called Film Exercise (1967), which premiered at the Sydney Film Festival. When Charters left his father’s studio, he enrolled at the University of Auckland to continue his formal studies. "From that moment on, it was inevitable that I should fall in love with movies and become a cinematographer." “I had witnessed the magical experience of processing and printing my first photographs in my father’s laboratory,” he recalls. Keenly observing how the stunned local audience watched the footage come to life in the local cinema the next day, Charters felt an indescribable connection to the moving image, stirring an emotion from deep within.
His proudest childhood memory, however, was watching Roy hand-develop a 16mm film of Queen Elizabeth 2’s visit to New Plymouth during the 'royal summer' of 1953–54. Inspired by his father Roy Charter's love of movies, Charters got behind a camera early on, progressing quickly to his father’s Bolex H16 REX-5. To date, Charters has been cinematographer, director, and producer for over 51 film and television projects throughout his career.Ĭharters was born in 1948 and grew up in New Plymouth, a small town on the west coast of New Zealand – an environment he says that both encouraged and fostered his career path. In Charter's case, riding on those details has played a considerable part in his becoming one of a handful of cinematographers ranked top of their profession by peers and associates. But it's the edgy details that ultimately determine our fate, and in some cases, reveal pathways to greatness.
In life, getting the big picture figured out is pretty straightforward. "But the image falls into great beauty at the sides of the frame. "There'd be a lovely, sharp image on a person in the foreground," he says. He shifts in his chair to savor the thought and then gestures towards an invisible cinema screen. But it's the stuff that happens at the edge of the frame which gives him the most satisfaction.
In a highly enthusiastic and effusive way, Charters speaks of how 2 to 1 compression in anamorphic glass offers the most painterly, expressive feel to the image. Rodney Charters, ASC is no stranger to camera lenses.