He created a number of musical works for the New Zealand cinema of the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s, including compositions for films such as Goodbye Pork Pie, Utu, The Quiet Earth, A Soldier's Tale or Spooked.
Their acquaintance dates back to 1966 and Murphy's first film, the unfinished children's musical The Magic Hammer.
While Murphy was directing, Charles composed the soundtracks to the films Goodbye Pork Pie, for which Charles wrote a jazz score, the Māori drama Utu, which has a predominantly symphonic score, and the dystopian, award-winning science fiction drama The Quiet Earth, in which he also processed avant-garde and experimental sounds in addition to symphonic ones.
Finally, in 2004, the mystery drama Spooked starring Cliff Curtis was created, the last joint work by Charles and Murphy.
[1] In 1996, Charles joined the Australian Film and Broadcasting School as composer-in-residence, where he taught composition for more than a decade.