CREATOR CHAT

Tara Bennett

Tara Bennett chats to Titan Books about her experiences working on The Art of Terminator Salvation and Terminator Salvation: The Official Movie Companion...

Well, they are two very different animals. My ‘24’ books are more exhaustive because I am covering 24 individual episodes of a season, which equates to 24 viewing hours of material to document, synopsize, collect background information on and interviews with pertinent cast and crew. For ‘Terminator Salvation,’ there is only two viewing hours of material to break down, which is inherently more manageable to cover in a more focused way. However the projects are similar in terms of the secrecy surrounding them. There was a lock down on information for both projects, which meant I had to adhere to the secrecy mandated by both productions. I happen to be very familiar with that process and have earned the trust of several very secretive series and films, so all it really meant to me was being hyper vigilante about my research material and notes being on a personal lockdown. No writing about either in public places or chatting about them with friends and family. But the real challenge of writing about a film like ‘Terminator Salvation’ was trying to get the last morsels of information into the book before we had to lock for publishing. A film of this nature makes changes up until a few weeks before it premieres so I had to know how to balance the inclusion of changing elements into the copy without making the book irrelevant in any way. It was difficult at times, and sometimes didn’t allow the kind of details I would have liked to include for myself and super fans, but I feel confident about what we ended up providing in the end.

I really excited to see a lot of things, actually. I’ve been privy to a lot of the script drafts and have seen the evolution of the story changes, which was fascinating. But I also know a movie doesn’t really find its heartbeat until it gets into the edit room, so seeing the final choices by McG and the editor Conrad Buff is going to be illuminating. I’m also excited to see the whole Harvester chase scene sequence. It’s epic in nature. I saw a rough cut of it in January and it was already thrilling. Lastly, the Terminator films are known for their amazing endings and this one is shaping up to be a doozy!

I came into my ‘Terminator’ love via James Cameron and ‘Aliens.’ I saw that film back in the late ‘80s and was just turned upside down. I become a Cameronite from that moment on. I then soaked up everything else he had done. I watched the original ‘Terminator’ and was again struck by the complexity of the story but more importantly the vulnerability of the characters. Sarah Connor and Kyle Reese’s battle to save themselves and find a moment of connection in the worst situation every imagined was compelling and haunting. It completely sucked me in and since then I’ve seen every sequel, watched the TV series and been a student of the mythology over the last quarter century.

Yes, I went to the ‘Salvation’ set, known as Project Angel, in August of 2008. I was able to talk to all the creative team behind the scenes at Albuquerque Studios and then spent time on the set of the Terminator Factory, which was an old abandoned power plant dressed to look like the bowels of Skynet. It was fun and fascinating.

It wasn’t difficult for me at all. Having worked on the ‘24’ books and Titan’s Official ‘24’ Magazine together for three seasons I became very adept at planning to gain more material than needed and then figuring out the jigsaw puzzle of what material to apply where. In the case of these two books, it also helped that both were very focused on different subjects. ‘The Art of Terminator Salvation’ was always going to be a showcase for production designer Martin Laing’s design work and McG’s overall cinematic vision. I was able to corral that material easily to that book. The ‘Companion Guide’ has a much wider scope and everything else, from cast to producers, really belonged in that tome. But I did do a lot of writing for Titan’s ‘Terminator Salvation’ tie in magazine too, so that was more of a challenge in terms of content balance. The good things was that I had plenty and what I couldn’t use in the book due to word count still had a home in the magazine, so all three really provide fresh and distinctive material for the discriminating fan. If you just buy one, you won’t get the whole story and if you buy three, you won’t get repetition.

“The Art of Terminator Salvation” is really for the cinephiles that love beautiful design work. Martin Laing provides us all the concept art that he and his team created for the film. Every facet of the film was drawn or digitally created so that McG and the production team could have a template for their locations, sets and environments. The artwork is spectacular and the book lovingly reproduces them all with detail and quality. I also provide text about the evolution of the visual aesthetic through interviews with Laing, McG, Stan Winston Studio and more of the art team.

“The Official Terminator Salvation Companion Guide” is for the mainstream movie junkie that loves to know how a movie came together. It’s got features about the story, the resurrection of the franchise, the visual effects, the stunts, the Oz effect, original cast interviews, and more. It’s as exhaustive as we could be including amazing set photography. Again, Titan really outdid themselves with the quality of the paper stock, the image reproductions and the overall layout and design. These books are so cool! I can’t imagine any fans of the franchise not enjoying them.