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SCRIPT: "TERMINATOR" by James Cameron
A1 - TITLE SEQUENCE - SLITSCAN EFFECT
1 - EXT. SCHOOLYARD - NIGHT
Silence. Gradually the sound of distant traffic becomes audible. A LOW ANGLE bounded on one side by a chain-link fence and on the other by the one-story public school buildings. Spray-can hieroglyphics and distant streetlight shadows. This is a Los Angeles public school in a blue collar neighborhood.
ANGLE BETWEEN SCHOOL BUILDINGS, where a trash dumpster looms in a LOW ANGLE, part of the clutter behind the gymnasium. A CAT enters FRAME. CAMERA DOLLIES FORWARD, prowling with him through the landscape of trash receptacles and shadows.
CLOSE ON CAT, which freezes, alert, sensing something just beyond human perception.
A sourceless wind rises, and with it a keening WHINE. Papers blow across the pavement. The cat YOWLS and hides under the dumpster. Windows rattle in their frames. The WHINE intensifies, accompanied now by a wash of frigid PURPLE LIGHT. A CONCUSSION like a thunderclap right overhead blows in all the windows facing the yard.
C.U. - CAT, its eyes are wide as the glare dies.
1A/FX - ANGLE - DUMPSTER
ELECTRICAL DISCHARGES arc from the dumpster to a water faucet and climb a drain pipe like a Jacob's Ladder.
CUT TO:
2 - EXT. SCHOOLYARD - NIGHT
SLOW PAN as the sound of stray electrical CRACKLING subsides. FRAME comes to rest on the figure of a NAKED MAN kneeling, faced away, in the previously empty yard. He stands, slowly. The man is in his late thirties, tall and powerfully built, moving with graceful precision.
C.U. - MAN, his facial features reiterate the power of his body and are dominated by the eyes, which are intense, blue and depthless. His hair is military short.
This man is the TERMINATOR.
He glances down, taking calm inventory of himself, and notices that a fine white ash covers his skin. He brushes at it unconcernedly as he walks toward the fence, scanning his surroundings.
CUT TO:
2A/FX CRANE SHOT - SCHOOLYARD/CITY - NIGHT
SLOW PAN as the sound of stray electrical CRACKLING subsides.
FRAME comes to rest on the figure of a NAKED MAN kneeling, faced away, in the previously empty yard. He stands, slowly. The man is in his late thirties, tall and powerfully built, moving with graceful precision.
C.U. - MAN, his facial features reiterate the power of his body and are dominated by the eyes, which are intense, blue and depthless. His hair is military short.
This man is the TERMINATOR. . . . . . CONTINUE
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