Operator

The short film, Operator is a Bafta is a 6 minute film, published in 2015, directed by Caroline Bartleet and produced by Rebecca Morgan. The cast starred Kate Dickie as the operator and Vicky McCurle as Gemma. 

Operator

The short film helps highlight how distressing life can be on a daily basis for a call operator and how they face emergencies when facing the challenges. This production was partly funded by the Fire Brigades Union.

The story was based around a brave fire brigade operator helping a distressed mother and her 3 year old son to escape from their burning house safely. We watch as the fire operator guides the mother on how to stay safe and what she needed to do in order to protect herself from the fire until the fire brigade turned up.

In my opinion, I think the genre could loosely be described as a drama as the production is an acted out real life situation, the event has been scripted therefore, making it more of a realistic drama than something based off of real life. I believe the target audience for this production would be mostly teens and adults as children aren't likely to understand what is taking place whilst adults and older children may understand the serious better.

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The narrative structure follows a basic framework, as it starts off with the operator at work, then the problem occurs when she receives the call about the fire. This is then solved when the fire brigade reach the burning house. I think the simple structure really works because it shows the viewing audience the real life situation of a calling operator and the positive side to it. 

I really like how the edited the voice overs with the visual sound as they overlapped them to help indicate how busy and immerse the situation really is. I think it was very effective how you could hear both of the conversations, both the operator and the victim as it really thought this was a good way to show the contrast between the two characters. No music can be heard throughout the entire production which in my opinion, is quite effective as it allows the audience to really focus on the dialogue. Also, the lack of music really allows the film to feel more factual and substantial.

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Camera techniques: The film frequently uses close up shots on the operator to really help catch her emotions and facial expressions. I think this really helps give the scenes more of an emotional connection with the story line and characters. I thought it was really clever how they only opted to have scenes with the fire operator and not the lady in distress. The camera carries out lots of pans of the lady at her desk, speaking to the victim. In my viewpoint, I think this allows the viewer to feel more involved with the story line and what is taking place. The photo on the right is an example of how the camera used close up shots to really capture the emotions better.

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In my opinion, the editing style is quite simplistic, but also effective. I really liked how to lack of quick moving transitions made the film seem more dramatic and eye catching. The editing really focuses on the facial expressions of the call operator. This really enhances how the lady is feeling and how it is like to work under pressure such as this. The image on the left indicates how the simple editing made the production feel more down to earth and logical whereas quick transitions and fast shots would have made the production seem more like a drama.

Setting: The entire short film is set in a room where fire brigade operators are set when taking calls. By only showing shots of this really makes the film seem more one sided with the story, giving the fire operator's side of the story and how she experiences the situation rather than focusing on the victim as this is seem quite often. The location is quite hard to identify but I don't think this really matters because the story line doesn't need a specific location. 

Characters: We only see 2 main characters throughout the production, with a couple of background characters at the beginning as fire brigade operators. By focusing on the pair, this really makes the film seem more inclusive and 

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Make up: The make up throughout was kept to a minimum which made the production appear more realistic as full blown make up would have ruined the effect and wouldn't have been functional. By looking at the close up of the lady in the image on the left, the make up was basic which made the production seen more realistic as no operator would attend work with heavy make up everyday.

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Lighting: During the film, all lighting was kept to a minimum which helped the camera capture more of the shadows in the scenes. The low lighting helped add a dramatic tone to the circumstances and for mystery. As you can see from the image on the right, the lighting was kept low and their faces were lit up by the monitors. I think this could be seen as metaphorical as the darkness around them could represent the problems they face whilst the light could be seen as the help.

By reviewing the story line and what can be seen and heard throughout, I believe the film production was aimed towards more of an older audience such as teenagers and adults because they are more likely to understand the seriousness of the situation and would benefit from it more. Younger children may find it confusing and hard to follow as the visuals on the screen don't change very often and it's mostly based on the dialogue. 

I really enjoyed watching the short film because it was nothing like i'd seen before. The lack of sudden change in the visuals and relying on the dialogue was a clever way to catch the attention of the audience more. The close ups really added to the dramatic tone and really made me focus on the importance of the speech. 

It didn't really inspire me to watch more short films like this genre as I think that the majority of the films would be similar but it would be interesting to find a short film with a similar genre that had a longer story line or an alternative ending style. I thought it was really well put together and made me want to keep watching to find out. I would definitely recommend this film to someone else as it's not only important to watch, but also shows a small insight as to what operators have to deal with on a daily basis. 

Header Image Credit: Caroline Bartleet

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Tegan Docherty

Tegan Docherty

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