As he graciously accepts the prize for Runner-up Judges' Choice: Best School Short Film in the NOVA Employment Focus on Ability 2016 Australia/New Zealand Competition, Richard Townsend wishes to extend a heartfelt “thanks” to the dedicated team he feels he has had around him throughout his development into the filmmaker he has already become. 

“There are probably many people who are wanting to create great projects, but they don’t have the people around them to support them – that’s something I’ve always been able to count on and I know I’m really lucky.”

The idea to enter the competition began on a whim, after Film teacher Naomi had suggested that she had thought Richard might consider re-cutting ‘Ragboy’ down to the five-minute entry length requirement as an artistic exercise. Having edited ‘Ragboy’ back to the five-minute mark, Richard felt that the short-cut version would not be true to the intent of the original film, which he had “really wanted to be a story that takes its time and was given room to breathe”. It was on the self-same day he reached that decision that Richard was struck by inspiration for ‘Silence’, whilst commuting home on the bus; and so the journey began.

“I had always been interested in the concept of telling a film story, in film space, without sound; but I never had an opportunity to follow my curiosity on it, until this competition created the perfect opportunity to explore those ideas.”

Richard says he has always wanted to step into the shoes of someone who experiences the world without sound to try to understand the beauty of the world without sound; to try to use music as a metaphor for exploring that and to capture it in the film medium. For example, the sunrise scene was orchestrated as a visual representation of the beauty in a world without sound; and the protagonist painting the sunrise was an expression of how he could experience beauty without sound.

“The hardest part was the scene in which the two characters are signing to each other – I didn’t want to add subtitles, and in fact this was one of the restrictions of the competition. I was really worried that people might not ‘get it’; but when it was screened at the awards ceremony there was a wave of laughter from the audience and I knew they had understood.”

Richard says he had no idea what a big deal this competition was at the time he had entered it – but realises now that he has stepped out onto an international platform. He said he didn’t think too much about it when he was first emailed about becoming a finalist but then, when he was offered tickets and accommodation in Sydney for the awards ceremony, it started to raise his awareness of the calibre of the competition.

He said he felt very relieved that ‘Silence’ was played in its entirety on the night, because he had been concerned that a clip, or montage of clips from within the film would have left the audience potentially believing that the film was silent due to lack of technical proficiency. As it stood, ‘Silence’ was well-received and the whole experience was a positive one.

When asked what his next steps were to be, Richard grinned wryly and said “More competitions! I’m considering giving the 48-hour film festival a try”. ‘Silence’ is also currently entered in the NZ Young Filmmakers Competition, 2016. Watch this space.