Rodney Charters died suddenly on Saturday in Amsterdam, the American Society of Cinematographers announced. He was 77. The New Zealand-born cinematographer shot 184 episodes of Fox's 24, the real-time Kiefer Sutherland thriller that ran from 2001 to 2010, missing only eight installments across the first eight seasons. He also shot the 2008 telefilm 24: Redemption and directed three of the eight episodes he did not photograph.
The ASC gave Charters its Career Achievement in Television Award in 2013. He received Emmy nominations for his 24 work in 2005 and 2006.
The show's look was defined by what the ASC called an "aggressive camera style, which incorporated handheld, whip pans and snap zooms." Charters explained his method to American Cinematographer magazine in 2004.
"We've evolved to the point where we always shoot a scene in its entirety, it's never broken into setups," he said. "We shoot two directions on every scene. We shoot one direction first, after it's been blocked and staged by the cast privately, without even me present, which is a little uncommon in television."
"When we're brought in, we have an understanding of what the scene is, but sometimes there are pleasant surprises. [Executive producer-director] Stephen [Hopkins] was a great one for saying, 'Look at the scene and imagine where the camera would never be, and that's where I want it.'"
Before 24, Charters shot 57 episodes of the NBC drama The Pretender during its 1997-2000 run and 19 installments of the second season of the WB-UPN sci-fi series Roswell in 2000-01. After 24, he worked on the first three seasons of the Showtime drama Shameless (2011-13), the first three seasons of the Dallas revival at TNT (2012-14) and the first two seasons of the Magnum P.I. reboot at CBS (2018-19).
His resume also included episodes of The Commish and The Last Ship and films including Kull: The Conqueror (1997), Zach Braff's Going in Style (2017) and The Accused (2025). He directed installments of Friday the 13th: The Series, The Pretender, Roswell and Dallas.
Charters was born on Nov. 25, 1948, and grew up in New Plymouth on New Zealand's west coast. His father was a portrait photographer and filmmaker. "I was raised in the darkroom," Charters told American Cinematographer in 2020.
While studying at the Elam School of Fine Arts at the University of Auckland, he shot a short film that made it into the Sydney Film Festival. That helped him get accepted to the Royal College of Art in London, where Tony and Ridley Scott were classmates. He did commercials with the brothers for a spell.
He worked in the sound department at the BBC and served as a news and documentary cameraman based in Toronto before getting regular work as a director of photography on scripted shows including Friday the 13th: The Series, The Hat Squad and M.A.N.T.I.S.
Charters shot the 1996 pilot in San Francisco for Nash Bridges, which brought him to the U.S. for good. He worked on that CBS crime show for two seasons.
He became a member of the ASC in 2004 after Owen Roizman, John Toll and Robert McLachlan recommended him.
Charters did not work on 24 when it returned for a ninth season, known as Live Another Day, in 2014. Survivors include his wife, Gillian, and his children, May, Jasmin and Robin.
According to Hollywood Reporter.