Rodney Charters: Get reel with iPod and Final Cut Pro (online at http://www.apple.com/hotnews/articles/2002/03/rodneycharters/)
"I think it's probably much easier to break into film - be it television or features - today than in the past," says Rodney Charters, director of photography for Fox's "24" and Warner Bros' "Roswell" television series.
"It's so easy to pick up a DV camera, and shoot a film and edit it," he says. "These tools of the trade used to be secretively passed on within families - the art of cinematography, of directing for the screen, or of editing the material - all of these professions were a hidden art. But not anymore thanks to iMovie and Final Cut Pro."
From Kull To 24 After completing the film feature "Kull the Conqueror" in 1995, Rodney directed an episode of "Hercules" in his old college town in New Zealand. While he was there, he got picked up to work on "The Pretender" series. This gig turned into a four-year stint, where Rodney directed 5 episodes.
"After `The Pretender,' I was in Toronto doing a TV movie with Camryn Manheim called `Kiss My Act' and I got tapped to do the second season of `Roswell,'" he says. And he directed an episode. Then, while working on another TV movie over his summer break, he picked up Fox's "24" series, which stars Kiefer Sutherland.
True Cinematic TV The action in the show happens in real time, so the entire season spans just 24 hours in a day in the life of the head of a CIA counter terrorist organization. One of the most striking things about the series is how cinematic it feels. For this, Rodney credits the director, Steven Hopkins, who directs every other two-hour block of episodes.
"Steven is a major feature film director who brings a sense that we are indeed making the world's longest feature film to the project, even with our severe time constraints of only 15 days for each two-hour episode," explains Rodney. "The series is riveting in its intensity and loyalty to truth and honesty, and the way we portray the events that the characters find themselves immersed in."
"Steven also gives the show its most unique qualities - its multiple frames, its organic hand-held camera style, and its gritty documentary photography and editing," he says. "I and my team of camera and electric people and grips are all excited to come to work because being on this show is like making a movie each day."
One Handheld Frenzy For many people, "24" is a piece of cinema. The pace is frantic, it's shot innovatively, and is quite dogma-like in it's style. "About 95 percent of it is shot handheld," says Rodney, "and we're very fluid with the motion of the camera around the cast."
Rodney credits the series creators, writer/producers Joel Surnow and Robert Cochran, with doing the incredible job of keeping the audience in suspense and the level of excitement high week after week. "The difference between this and a drama for the screen is that you usually spend 30 to 50 days on a feature, where we only have the equivalent of 16 days for 90 to 100 minutes of what would be a feature of normal length," explains Rodney. "So we're working quite a bit faster.
"The whole process is minutes rather than days. But there's a very tactile, instant kind of quality that you get out of it, because you can't think about it or be too prepared," he says. "There's a lot of juggling that goes on the set in order to get through the day, both for look and for the number of pages that need to be shot."
He adds, "After I do all the juggling, much of the catching is done by my lighting gaffer, David St Onge."
Rodney's two camera operators on "24," Guy Skinner and Jay Herron, carry a lot of the load, hand holding 50lb cameras most of the time. "Those guys are continually searching and finding appropriate frames, dancing and visually giving a lot of the style of what our final product is," credits Rodney. "Guy and Jay do an incredible job, along with their focus pullers-who have a terrible job to do, because it's the most difficult thing to focus a hand-held camera that is continually adjusting its distance from the camera film plane to the subject."
Dream Hiatus is Kid's Flicks During Rodney's break between seasons each year, he likes to work on children's movies for The Disney Channel. "I've done three of them now-one called "Brink" on rollerblading and one on horses with Joey Lawrence called "Horse Sense," says Rodney. "Then, last summer I went with the same director, Gregg Beeman, down to Brisbane in Australia on the Gold Coast, to film a classic Madeleine L'Engel's book called `A Ring of Endless Light' for The Disney Channel."
Lights, Cameras...Action! For years, Rodney used Polaroid to give him an idea of how the lighting would look once it was finally exposed on film. But not anymore. "Now I've gone over to using a digital camera because they've finally become both affordable and the quality has improved, at least a four megapixel lens with an aperture which is the same as what we're using on our motion picture film camera lenses - F2," he says.
"I used to have to manually control the aperture, shutter, speed, etc. on the camera, but now I can set that all up to be controlled digitally," he adds. "I can put filters on this camera and I can play with color, and shift the color temperature around. If I'm concerned, I can print out on the tiny Olympus printer that I carry."
Dailies Via Email Since 1995, Rodney had been getting digital video dailies, which enable him to both extract material for his reel, and to instruct the colorist on what final adjustments need to be made. But because Rodney's working days are already 14 hours long, he makes the adjustments at home in Final Cut Pro and then emails the changes to the colorist.
"Sometimes you might want a room to look cool, where the dailies come in looking a bit warmer," he explains. "Since there are several people involved in this process, down the road you sometimes lose control of how you want the picture to look. So using Final Cut Pro at home helps me keep control over the what the final picture looks like."
The Tools Are In Your Hands Now Rodney thinks that, thanks to Macs, anyone can now become a filmmaker. "You have tools that are quite acceptable for screening to a wide audience," he says. "In fact, a lot of people get their work nowadays by putting their samples up on web sites - like reelsondemand.com where directors of photography, directors, costumers, production designers and art directors put their reels on the net, running as QuickTime movies. That's how people go and examine them and see whether or not they feel they're worthy of employment.
"Anybody sitting at home quietly now with iMovie or Final Cut Pro and a small DV camera could write a story, shoot it, edit it, finish it and then put it up on the web in a way that people could actually be inspired to talk to them about employing them," says Rodney. "For example, take that short film, `405' where the airliner lands on the 101 freeway. That was made by two young digital artists - a very small, short film - very funny and brilliantly executed. And they got themselves talked to. They got jobs out of it."
"If you've got a Mac and no camera yet, just go out and get one - if you're really serious, try to get the three-chip one - otherwise one of the single-chip minis, like the PC110, is an excellent choice," he says. "Use that camera as the original field recorder, and for playback. Then edit it in iMovie or Final Cut Pro.
"Final Cut Pro is one of the most powerful editing tools that has come along in a long time. When you compare Final Cut Pro, at a thousand dollars, to something that could cost you around 100,000 dollars and you still get, pretty well, the same quality out of it, that's one amazing deal." he adds.
He also recommends checking out cinematography.net and 2-pop.com for further insight on film techniques.
iPod Director Actors apparently aren't the only ones who have to learn their lines. For years, Rodney carried a tape recorder around to help him refresh his memory of the script dialog, prior to shooting a sequence or episode. But, just like the Poloroid, the tape player is now out the door, thanks to the iPod.
"The iPod is an extraordinary little tool," says Rodney. "When I was directing my last episode of `Roswell,' I was able to use the iPod to play back all of the parts on my iPod. I used to do this on cassette tape, so I could play it back in the car as I was driving around."
But there are the extra benefits of doing this digitally on the iPod. "I'm able carry around the whole script, and manage the script order using the iPod's playlist cataloging system. Plus, I can bounce between scenes, just with a click on the dial to flash through the movie - which is important because we rarely film scenes in script order.
"With the iPod, I can skip around very conveniently to see what the next stage work is and then go back to the script itself, to see what scenes come up after each other, just by bouncing around. And organizing all of that information is possible in iTunes, which transfers directly onto the iPod. I carry my iPod around the film set, bring it into the car and use it while driving to work.
"In seven minutes, I can easily get through a day's work, and sometimes review other material as well as I'm driving," he adds. "And there's a lot of driving to be done in L.A., so - for me - the iPod is a godsend."
