Operator - Caroline Barleet

 Operator (2015), directed by Caroline Barleet, set in an emergency call centre, follows the story of an operator who is dealing with a woman calling about a fire in her home. Gemma (the woman who has called 999) has discovered a fire in her house, with her son, Jaime, trapped upstairs.  We watch as the Operator, Laura, tries to calm to mother in the frantic situation, trying to keep both the mother and the son safe and reassure them that help is on the way. Throughout this, we can hear the call going on, the off-screen roll of the mother scream and panicking. This performance is essential to the effectiveness of the film. Although the short may seem to end flatly, with the fire department arriving and saving the mother and son, the ending makes perfect sense in context to the story. The final drop of tension as the couple are in safety, enhance by the incessant bussing in the background, allows for moment calm and a break from the frantic storyline that has just occurred. A few breaths are taken by Laura and then she jumps back in to taking more calls and help saving lives, showing the repetitive tension and stress that occurs in her job.

Genre - Drama

Cinematography and Lighting - The cinematography in this short is simple yet effective as the camera maintains the focus throughout. The camera continuously films Laura from various angle as she interacts with Gemma on the call. The film begins with multiple different dollies around the room, watching the many different calls to emergency services and the operator dealing with the situations, all scanning the environment and curving round the operators. The final shot of this opening sequence is of Laura from behind as she deals with the 'fire', this shot lasts significantly longer than the others, presenting to us that this is the main story in the film.  Each shot throughout this film is mostly close up, or begins with a mid shot and dollies in closer, this builds the tension throughout the story. Various angle are used throughout, each used in way as if we are eavesdropping into a conversation and there is rarely a portrait shot to portray this as we peer through the computers or there is a side profile shot. The surroundings are often out of focus and only Laura's face is in focus, enhancing her facial expression and reaction to the situation developing.

The lighting in the film is again simple but effective, the lighting is used to emulate what an operating room would look like, with Laura's face being lit up by the 3 computer screens around her. The rest of the surroundings is dimly lit to allow us to focus on Laura, the pin point of the story.

Sound - Sound is incredibly important in this film, as it allows to even be able to understand the story. Gemma, the woman who has rang 999, is never shown throughout the film and the only thing that depicts her situation is her describing what is going on, meaning that sound is key to allowing this story to develop.  To begin the shots are filled with multiple conversations with the operators, dealing with different emergencies, each story popping in for a moment and then another conversation overtakes creating a hapazardous feeling to begin with. When on the call with Laura, Gemma's voice is slightly muffled to sound as if she was on the phone at that time, with Laura's voice being much clearer, as well as this you are able to hear the subtle cracks and sparks of the fire happening as it continues to grow in the house. Laura's voice is made to be clearer throughout, in both the way that she speaks but also the volume of her voice, to show her lead in this role and her guiding Gemma in what to do. At the end of the short, once the call has ended and Gemma and her son as got to safety, the sound completely cuts off and only deep breaths of Laura can be heard, this happens for a few seconds as Laura composes herself after the stress, this shows the amount of adrenaline and stress each operator goes through in each call, however the shortness of this break in sound, indicates the business of being an operator as after a second or so the background kerfuffle begins again and Laura begins another call.