15 Lessons I Learned From Studying The Making Of The Terminator
A case study on how an unknown Canadian filmmaker started out with his first film, and how these lessons led to a career as the second highest-grossing film director of all time.
In April, I wrote a two-part essay about the making of The Terminator, and I thought I’d collect the lessons worth studying from it into this one place. Because I found that Terminator has a lot of good stuff to teach first-time filmmakers for both in front of and behind the camera.
Let’s get to it.
Dreams are great sources for ideas
James Cameron got the idea for Terminator when he had a nightmare after collapsing from fever in a tiny Italian hotel room. In the dream, a knife-wielding chrome exoskeleton crawled out of the fire and came after him. As soon as he woke up, Cameron sketched the image on hotel stationery, while interrogating the story behind the image.
Which leads directly into the next lesson…
Keep a notebook beside your bed to write down your dreams instead of your phone
Imagine what we would’ve lost if Cameron had picked up his smartphone instead of sketching out his dream? Or if Paul McCartney, who got the melody for ‘Yesterday’ in a dream, reached for his phone instead of going straight to the piano to play what he heard?
Keep a dream journal next to your bed. Even if you don’t come up with the next Terminator, you’ll at least get a good night’s sleep by staying away from the screen’s blue light.
Work with a friend if you hate writing
Cameron doesn’t really like to write. So he reached out to his friend William Wisher to help him write the script; though Wisher wouldn’t get a screenwriting credit, he’d get one for Terminator 2.
Important: you and the friend have to share the same tastes and interests, or else there will be conflicts.
Steal like an artist— borrow from films to create your own
Terminator has at least three direct influences:
Halloween (1978)
The Warriors (1979)
Mad Max 2 (1981)
You cannot create films in a vacuum. Everything is influenced by everything; if not film, then from art or comics or anime— whatever.
Also, watch beyond your circles. You never know where and how influences can inspire you— remember, George Lucas was inspired by I Vitelloni for American Graffiti, and The Hidden Fortress and Flash Gordon for Star Wars; meanwhile, the king of cribbing Quentin Tarantino borrowed (almost liberally) the plot of Lady Snowblood for Kill Bill.
Constraints lead to creativity
Contrary to what you’d think, there is freedom in limitations.
Since Cameron knew he would only get a small budget since he was an unknown first-time director (he refuses, to this day, to acknowledge Piranha II: The Spawning as his first film), he had to deploy his effects careful in his film.
That meant not showing the mechanics of the time travel and definitely eliminating the idea of a second liquid-metal Terminator (that he later used for T2), while also keeping most of the effects for the final showdown towards the end of the film.
On a different film, Jaws, the mechanical shark kept malfunctioning during shooting. As a result, Steven Spielberg was forced to use and show the shark sparingly— largely, like in Terminator, in the final showdown— while finding creative ways to suggest the shark.
A fin. POV shots.
And the final touch from composer John Williams that heightened the suspense: the ominous two-note double-bass ostinato.
Everyone calls it genius. In reality, it was a workaround for a problem.
How can you use limits before shooting a film to get the most creativity out of it? From the beginning, deliberately insert guardrails and rules. Maybe it’s using your effects sparingly. Maybe it’s staying confined to a single location.
Now find ways to get around them. And you’ll find that the solution is often better.
Find a producer who believes in your vision
For Cameron, this was Gale Anne Hurd. He sold her the rights to Terminator for $1 in exchange for allowing him to direct it. Hurd kept her word, turning down financiers who were interested in funding the film but wanted Cameron out. Although the deal meant that Cameron could never get to enjoy the financial windfall from the franchise, he chalks it up to “the cost of a Hollywood education”. Besides, I think he’s done quite well for himself with Titanic and the Avatar franchise alone…
There will NEVER be a good time to raise money for a small film
This is the lesson that is burned into my brain.
When Cameron and Hurd set out to find financiers, 1982 was a bad year— especially for unknown filmmakers trying to break in. At the time, unemployment in America was at 10% while interest rates hovered at 17%. People were more risk-averse and less likely to put up money.
But guess what? Things aren’t any better today. They’ve been bad across the decades, some a little worse than others, but still bad.
However, bad times doesn’t mean you won’t be able to find people who believe in your vision and give you their money. It just means you have to be savvier and more persistent about how you pitch it, as demonstrated below…
Ask friends for help
Cameron had a key meeting with John Daly of Hemdale Pictures and wanted to make an impression to seal the deal. So he asked actor Lance Henriksen to dress up as the Terminator and turn up early.
Henriksen, only too happy to oblige, literally kicked in the door of the Hemdale office, “wearing a ripped T-shirt, a leather jacket, and knee-high boots” with “gold foil from a pack of Vantage cigarettes smoothed on his teeth and special-effects cuts painted on his face”. The poor receptionist was terrified, and when Cameron arrived later, the Hemdale staff were delighted to see him, if only to get Henriksen to stop sitting there and staring at them icily.
Did it actually help to seal the deal? Well, it certainly didn’t hurt, because Hemdale agreed to finance the picture.
Speaking of…
Investors can be from anywhere
One of the earliest investments in The Terminator was courtesy of HBO who put up $500,000 for the premium cable rights. This was crucial because the money put in convinced others to put in money, too. The landscape has changed especially with the internet and streaming, but there’s still money to be found in showing on airplanes, on cruises, and so on.
Be prepared to change your original vision for a better idea
Cameron originally envisioned the Terminator as a small-made, lithe figure who could blend into the crowd. Arnold Schwarzenegger is neither small-made nor can he blend into the crowd. But after one meeting with the Austrian bodybuilder, Cameron was charmed enough to reconsider what the titular Terminator could look like, even though it meant updating his script to accommodate the casting change. But look how well it turned out!
Definitely be prepared for your plans to get changed!
Filming on Terminator was supposed to start in spring 1983, but then Schwarzenegger was contractually obliged to reprise his role as Conan the Barbarian in the sequel, Conan the Destroyer. This resulted in an 18-month delay and if this happened to me before I read this, I’d have burst into tears. Cameron must’ve felt equally upset, but that delay would turn out to be a hidden boon…
Turn delays and disadvantages to your advantage
Since 18 months wasn’t enough time to start a new movie, Cameron decided to send his Terminator script around as a sample to get some writing jobs. One of them led to a fateful meeting with Walter Hill and David Giler. Cameron went in expecting to pitch a space-version of Spartacus; and came out with a sequel to Ridley Scott’s Alien. He submitted a treatment in two weeks— Hill and Giler loved it so much that they hired him at once to write the script.
At the same time, he also got hired to write a first draft for a Rambo sequel. That meant he had three months to write Alien 2, Rambo 2, and rewrite Terminator all at the same time. Cameron asked Giler what he should do. The producer replied, “Well, don’t be stupid. Take both jobs.”
And he did. And it worked out well for him. Aliens and Terminator, anyway; Rambo II was not well-received.
Find your tribe
Cameron’s initial choice for the special effects, Dick Smith (The Godfather), turned down Terminator, but directed Cameron to his friend Stan Winston. Winston and Cameron clicked right away, forging a strong personal and professional bond that lasted all the way until Winston’s death in 2008. The only way to make something unique is to make it with other people who get what you’re trying to do.
Plus, it’s just always more fun.
Ignore conventional Hollywood wisdom about female characters— and write good roles for women
From the Terminator to present, Cameron’s films either have female leads or are split between male and female leads. As a result, a James Cameron film draws in both men and women to the cinema.
This is what Cameron had to say about writing Sarah Connor: “In writing I like to be fresh, and at the time of Terminator, that kind of female character hadn’t really been done.”
What Cameron understood— that Hollywood keeps forgetting— is that women are a large part of the moviegoing audience… and the mainstream cinemas have too few movies that appeal to them (most movies are catered to men, especially young men). Hollywood is constantly surprised when a female-driven film performs well at the box office, and even more surprised when Cameron’s films which are often female-driven, outperform expectations at the box office.
Plus, if you write a good female lead role, you’ll attract good actresses. Cameron’s films have either launched or significantly boosted the careers of the likes of Linda Hamilton, Sigourney Weaver, Kate Winslet, and Zoe Saldaña.
Learn to wear multiple hats
Cameron trained under low-budget filmmaker Roger Corman, who taught him a lot about the different facets of filmmaking. Coupled with his artistic training and his engineering mind, Cameron has an artistic and technical expertise that allows him to get involved deeply in all areas of the process. He’s even willing to operate the camera on dangerous stunts if his camera operator is nervous. Cameron learnt to do different things partly out of necessity; but it also led him to make films with BIG-ASS budgets because he knows what he’s doing. You don’t have to be an expert in cinematography, VFX, sound, and all that… but it certainly doesn’t hurt.
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Long live the movies!
D.L. Holmes