Jun 24, 2020
RICH CELENZA sits down with his first cousin and one of his heroes CHARLIE CELENZA. Charlie for the last 35 years has been known as one of the best film/television editors and Videographers in Chicago. Charlie has gone on to win two EMMY's and five TELLY Awards. He also won two New York Festival World awards and 1 SILVER PHILO AWARD!
Charlie has a BA in Communications from Illinois State. He has worked on TV documentaries, TV commercials, TV sports programming, educational programs, and independent features.
Rich and Charlie first talk about how Charlie grew up wanting to be a stunt man and loved watching Burt Reynolds’ films. So after graduating high school, Charlie attended Illinois State University to study film and television. Charlie became a standout student and began shooting footage for some of the local news stations. Charlie for one of his classes begins filming and editing different TV programs using stunts with his roommate in college all over the campus. Before you know it, their filmed stunts became well known not only throughout their campus but all over the state of Illinois.
Charlie created a stand out 30-minute video program and audio sound effects program in one of his advanced television classes. It was so exceptional, the University film department decided to use them to demonstrate incoming students how to produce video and audio programs for the next 15 years. After graduating college Charlie went on to work at cable company doing local TV commercials.
After that, Charlie caught his break and was hired by a video production house to shoot and edit "At The Movies" which featured Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert. Charlie then went on to work at Broadview Media for 20 years and won many different awards for many different projects. One of Charlie's children was born with special needs and their family was giving a vacation thru "Make a Wish Foundation". He videotaped their family vacation & edited an emotional 4-minute video of the trip and sent it to the foundation to thank them.
He received a call the following week by the foundation leaders and was asked if they could use that video to show all the "Make a Wish foundation" staff around the world how important their work was for these children. Charlie then went to with a very close friend Hector Perez at Rocket Productions. Rich and Charlie discuss how Charlie edited the trailer for Rich’s first film Sore Losers. He then went on to edit Rich’s second feature film Insanity. They wrap up talking about what Charlie thinks the future of editing is going to look like. Rich also thanks Charlie for always inspiring him and helping him throughout his entire life.