An Interview with Rodney Charters (Director/Cinematographer, 24)

When most of us television viewers become engrossed in a show, very rarely do we think about how it gets from the stage to our living rooms. Who are these people behind all the drama? The actors may be playing these great roles, but the real magic happens behind that camera. Did you know that the cinematographers and the main crew know about major plot twists well before the actors? I had the unique opportunity to speak with Rodney Charters, the Emmy-nominated cinematographer of Fox's 24 and learned that there is much more than meets the eye when it comes to working behind the scenes on one of television's hottest series.

Q: So, you were busy filming scenes for 24 today - anything interesting we should know about?

Rodney: [Laughs] "Well, I can tell you it was in CTU and it involves the cast of characters you know only too well. No secrets I can share with you."

Q: Are all the major players still in place?

Rodney: "Yes, yes they are. I think there will be some changes in the next couple of weeks or so. Everybody's good."

Q: When did you develop an interest in cinematography?

Rodney: "My father was a still photographer in New Zealand. He was trained with the New Zealand Air Force. He was active in the Pacific during the war and was assisting aircraft and their bombing with surveillance cameras. I grew up with that. I have a scrapbook of his experiences of his service in the war. He came back and started a stills studio in a small town. Primarily he was doing weddings, so I was often out toting bags and found myself in the darkroom, fascinated by the magic of chemical film. There's nothing quite as exciting as watching your first images emerge on the paper in the darkroom. I think anyone who is in photography will probably reflect that those days are now going away from us. There was something so timeless and classical about traditional chemical photography. I'm glad to say that we still shoot 24 on film. It is a medium of dramatic expression as far as I'm concerned."

Q: What kind of training did you receive?

Rodney: "I went to architectural school. I struggled with calculus and realized that I really, really wanted to make movies, so I segwayed into art school and wound up at the Royal College of London and went to film school there. I started out on Documentaries as a 16mm cameraman with my own kit and traveled the globe."

Q: You've done a fair bit of directing as well, what is the most challenging aspect of being the director?

Rodney: "Having an answer to all the questions. You're the one person everyone turns to to keep the knowledge of where the action shoot is going that day. You have a script, great, but your interpretation of it is your responsibility to the story. I like humor. Very rarely can we get Kiefer to smile, once or twice during the whole series, 145 hours of drama. Joel (Surnow) said to me when I first started out directing that nobody smiles. I managed to get a couple of smirks, so I was happy to be the guy who made that happen."

Q: I understand that the crew is often the first to know about major plot points, how do you handle the stress of knowing a beloved character is about to die and they don't know it yet?

Rodney: "It's difficult. In fact, you see sometimes that a character is about to go and nobody has actually spoken about what's going on. I particularly remember when the decision was made to kill Leslie Hope's character and Joel (Surnow) came out onto the set like a school teacher and took her by the arm and put an arm around her shoulder and took her off into a corner to tell her that they were planning on killing her off. When you're on a series on television and you're the lead on a series that's been picked up for year two, you can only see dollar signs. For some people, it was bad, for some it's the camaraderie that develops when you're on a show together. It's as psychologically damaging to the crew as it is to the cast. To be amongst the family that you know is going to continue on and now you're cut out from them, you can never come back to it. I do feel deeply saddened for them. In a way, 24 has introduced the idea that nothing is sacred on television in a very positive way. Sometimes the story does demand that somebody die, that's the way the story unfolds and that's the way you have to play it. They've always been immensely professional about it."

Q: Does the cast ever pester you for details?

Rodney: "No, they know not to. I get my scripts online because I want to save a few trees, so they're emailed to me and I get to read them at home. They're not lying around for cast members to see, they would have to come to my computer and click on it and go into my email to find it."

Q: Tell us about The Rookie?

Rodney: "The Rookie is an attempt to make something without the traditional advertising. People don't like these ads, they don't want to watch them, therefore they took a wonderful approach. They said, 'Let's do this all on the web, let's create a clone of a drama for a younger generation.'"

Q: Are you planning on working on the 24 movie?

Rodney: "I would love to be asked! I think it's not going to happen this year, Kiefer is already on another feature, so I imagine there's going to be script developments for another 12 months. Hopefully in 2008, we'll be gearing up."