Mr. Kershaw's Dream System (1982)

Directed by Peter Robinson

Full film at https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x8omnvc 

The need to go out and sell the wide range of equipment and services it offers has never been more important to British Telecom. Selling, however, can take many forms and one which has been used with considerable success by a variety of organisations in recent years is the short, humorous film with well known personalities such as John Cleese and Ronnie Barker taking starring roles. 

British Telecom's first venture into this type of production began about a year ago and the result is now a very funny 20-minute film which uses Not the Nine O'clock News favourite Rowan Atkinson to help sell Monarch, British Telecom's all-electronic office telephone system. 

The film-Mr Kershaw's Dream System - has already won this year's top prize in the British Industrial and Scientific Film Association's award ceremony held at Brighton. It first began taking shape when Queen's Award for Industry win­ners Video Arts Ltd were approached to write and produce something which would not only highlight some of Monarch's many advanced features but also use comedy to amuse an audience of potential customers. A meeting took place to discuss script ideas with Antony Jay (writer of BBC TV's Yes Minister), Rowan Atkinson - and the Video Arts production team. Many amusing ideas flowed at that meeting and within a few weeks a pilot script was submitted for British Telecom's approval. This was carefully vetted to check technical detail. 

The film was to be about Robin Kershaw, played by Rowan Atkinson, who had been with his company for many years. In that time, the company had expanded and was using many more tele­phones. The problem was that the company had outgrown its old system and the resulting chaos had proved too much for Kershaw. 

Explaining the problems to Dr Bowen his psychiatrist (played by Geoffrey Palmer of BBC TV's Butterflies), Kershaw is to be seen in a series of flashbacks suffering the chaotically funny, but very real, problems which he was experiencing using the antiquated system. Interspersed were scenes of a perfect system (the Monarch) which Kershaw thinks he is only dreaming about. At the end of the film Dr Bowen insists that Kershaw faces reality and the two of them visit the company to find that a Monarch really has been installed. Thus Kershaw's sanity is restored

Filming began just before Christmas at a flat near the Royal Albert Hall in London. The Video Arts team moved in with a vast array of film equipment and props and all was set to begin. Each scene had been carefully scheduled to make the best use of the time available, and repre­sentatives from the British Telecom Monarch product group were on hand throughout filming to advise on the tele­phonic aspects and make sure that the film followed exactly the Monarch's capabilities. 

All of the scenes were filmed throughout a week-long period with a total of about 30 people busy looking after all the various aspects such as make up, wardrobe, lighting, sound recording, set decoration and so on. Even a firm of caterers had been brought in to provide endless tea and coffee and substantial quantities of hot food when needed. 

The need to get everything just right was paramount and most scenes demand­ed several rehearsals. It took about an hour and a half to prepare, rehearse and shoot one sequence for instance which lasts only 16 seconds in the finished film. But although everyone worked extremely hard there were many- lighter moments and by the end of the week the various sets had certainly seen their fair share of laughter. 

Next step was the editing process dur­ing which the individual scenes were linked together in the cutting room early this year. Parts of the sound track were dubbed on in a sound studio in the heart of Soho. Telephone bells and tones were added to the sound track as none of the telephones in the film, other than those on the Monarch System was actually con­nected. After four hours work the dub­bing was complete, and the film finished. 

The whole thing took several months to complete, was demanding work but the end result was a short, amusing film which is certain to repay the effort put into it by achieving its goal - to sell vast numbers of the Monarch Call Connect System.

Mr G. K. Mitchell is a senior telecom superintendent in British Telecom Enterprises Monarch product group and is responsible for current developments of the Monarch Call Connect System