The Terminator – An experience with “guerrilla filmmaking”
The movie that gave us the iconic line “I’ll be back” had to be included on a list about action movies!
A cyborg from the future (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is sent from the year 2029 to 1984 on a mission. He has to find and kill Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton), a young waitress, whose unborn son will lead humanity to war against the machines. Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn) is a soldier in that war also sent from the future, who has to find and protect Sarah and try and stop the seemingly indestructible cyborg.
Much like Mad Max, for The Terminator, director James Cameron also utilized the “guerrilla filmmaking” technique to get around needing permits for certain scenes. The crew and actors would arrive at locations, shoot the scene, and then leave hurriedly before the police showed up. Since a lot of the scenes were shot without shutting down roads, most of the people in the background are actually regular citizens walking by.
When they shot the final scene, the police arrived to shut down the production. The scene was being shot without a permit, so one of the crew members came up with the excuse that they were filming for his son’s film school project and they just had to get this last shot. And, funnily enough, the police officer believed them!
In fact, since they used this tactic for much of the film, it explains why most of it happens at night. Cameron would even call Arnold Schwarzenegger at 3 AM and tell him to rush to a location in full costume so they could quickly reshoot a scene while they had an open window. Cameron is lucky the hulking action star didn’t try and fight him for waking him up!