Colla and his team are off to the Taos International Film Festival in New Mexico after co-writing and co-directing the award-winning short film, The Script Machine, with Shanks.

The Script Machine, like their previous entry Fallout, won the Melbourne editon of the 48 Hour Film Project, where filmmakers have to make a short movie in just 48 hours, starting with the same prop, line of dialogue and character.

Fallout was a herculean effort to complete in testing conditions in the Dandenong Ranges.

Undeterred, they "threw everything they had", including a 17-strong cast, in the latest edition of the competition.

This year they had a chemist named Jeremy or Jenny Thomson, an earring for a prop and a single line, "I thought I would never say this".

Colla and Shanks, of Seddon, came up with The Script Machine, the story of a young writer who is drugged and connected to a machine to churn out traditional Hollywood storylines. The only way to survive is to break the conventions of script writing and "unplug" themselves.

Filmed on numerous locations in the west, including The Substation in Newport, Newport Lakes and the Williamstown Pony Club, it almost made a clean sweep of the awards, winning best sound design, best editing, best cinematography, best script, best direction and best overall film. The competition only gets harder: in New Mexico, The Script Machine, will be up against 60 short films from across the world, all competing for a place at the Cannes Film Festival in France later in the year.