Short Film Analysis - Operator

The short film Operator follows the job of a phone operator for the fire department as she deals with an incident.

This film is fairly dark with only the computer screens to light the room. This helps create the sense of danger and isolation which the film focuses on. The entire film is shot in long still shots of a woman on the phone to a victim in a burning house. There is very minimal camera movement or different angles and shots to make sure that all the focus is on the dialogue.

At the beginning of the film, the camera pans passed many different phone operators and you catch snippets of their conversations which helps quickly establish to the viewer the setting and situation. Once it gets to the Scottish woman, it stays focused on her for the rest of the film.

There isn't a lot of sound apart from the phone operator, the woman on the other end and any noises from her end of the phone. The one use of non-deigetic sound is when it appears like Gemma has died and there are long drawn out strings to create suspense until it immediatly cuts off when it's revealed that she's alive.

Once the phone cuts out when Gemma is saved, there is just silence for a few seconds while Laura sits there to process everything that's just happened before going straight back in with the line "Hello Fire Service, can you tell us your address please?". This is extremely effective as it shows the intensity of every single phone call and how strong the phone operators have to be.