In 2015, Caroline Bartleet directed a short film, 'Operator', starring Kate Dickie and Vicky McClure, which ended up winning a BAFTA Award for 'Best Short Film'. The suspenseful short follows a phone operator at a fire department as she tries to guide a woman on the line to safety, focusing not on the woman in danger but on the operator and how relentless and emotionally draining her job is.
I enjoyed the way this film started; successfully introducing the scene with a montage of phone operators, whilst also drawing attention to the variety of calls they have to deal with, with one employee explaining that the caller 'needs a locksmith'. This immediately represents the issues with the emergency services system and how much people waste the operators' time. Then, when the camera settles on the main character, we are drawn into her conversation, based on a real 999 call, which is captured with only two camera angles, and one long take, forcing the film to rely heavily on Dickie's performance, which she pulls off. Bartleet's use of sound in this short is also particularly effective, as the dialogue from the woman in the fire is often difficult to hear, making the audience strain to hear her, as the operator does, drawing us further into the scene. And, at the end of the call, we are exposed to a sudden and deafening silence, portraying how difficult this woman's job is, whilst also making the ending slightly ambiguous, as along with the operator, we are unaware of exactly what happens to the woman at the other end of the line.
I think it was very effective for Bartleet to only show the operator, as we can hear what she hears and can't see anything she can't see- putting us completely in her point of view. I also think that the representation of gender in this short is effective, as it portrays the operator as both empathetic -a stereotypical female trait- and logical/professional, which is something that would typically have been considered a male characteristic. The woman on the other end of the line is also presented as a powerful woman, as she appears to be alone in her house, and there is no mention of a husband form either characters, which I think Bartleet does to show how well women can deal with stressful situations without a man, which is something that has previously been lost in film and Hollywood.
In terms of this piece influencing my own work, Bartleet's film reinforces how effective a cyclical structure is in a short film, and also shows how simple a film can be whilst still being well-made and captivating for a viewer. I think I want to make my own film slightly more complicated than this, however, as I think a more ambitious story-line will transfer well to a storyboard.
I enjoyed the way this film started; successfully introducing the scene with a montage of phone operators, whilst also drawing attention to the variety of calls they have to deal with, with one employee explaining that the caller 'needs a locksmith'. This immediately represents the issues with the emergency services system and how much people waste the operators' time. Then, when the camera settles on the main character, we are drawn into her conversation, based on a real 999 call, which is captured with only two camera angles, and one long take, forcing the film to rely heavily on Dickie's performance, which she pulls off. Bartleet's use of sound in this short is also particularly effective, as the dialogue from the woman in the fire is often difficult to hear, making the audience strain to hear her, as the operator does, drawing us further into the scene. And, at the end of the call, we are exposed to a sudden and deafening silence, portraying how difficult this woman's job is, whilst also making the ending slightly ambiguous, as along with the operator, we are unaware of exactly what happens to the woman at the other end of the line.
I think it was very effective for Bartleet to only show the operator, as we can hear what she hears and can't see anything she can't see- putting us completely in her point of view. I also think that the representation of gender in this short is effective, as it portrays the operator as both empathetic -a stereotypical female trait- and logical/professional, which is something that would typically have been considered a male characteristic. The woman on the other end of the line is also presented as a powerful woman, as she appears to be alone in her house, and there is no mention of a husband form either characters, which I think Bartleet does to show how well women can deal with stressful situations without a man, which is something that has previously been lost in film and Hollywood.
In terms of this piece influencing my own work, Bartleet's film reinforces how effective a cyclical structure is in a short film, and also shows how simple a film can be whilst still being well-made and captivating for a viewer. I think I want to make my own film slightly more complicated than this, however, as I think a more ambitious story-line will transfer well to a storyboard.
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