Rodney Charters, director of photography for Fox’s “24” and Warner Bros’ “Roswell” television series, will visit Apple’s Glendale retail store Saturday, March 23. His visit is scheduled for noon Pacific.
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Charters was the subject of a recent Apple article entitled, Get Reel with iPod and Final Cut Pro, where he talked about his experience with Apple products.
“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.”
Charters talks about his background in the article as well as what it’s like making 24. Thanks to the Macintosh, Charters thinks anyone can 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.
He is an obvious fan of Final Cut Pro, both for its performance and price. “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 said.
Charters also uses an iPod to get his daily work done. Thought of mostly as a consumer device, the iPod has replaced Charters tape player that he carried around to refresh his memory of the script dialog.
“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.”