How’s the creative scene where you live? Sydney is a great place to make films. We having amazing crews – there is a true independent spirit about the people – and we have a really fantastic environment. I can never believe how hard the crews work. You spend 16 to 18 hours on a set and people are still happy.

Creatively processed I’d like to think my creative process is unique, but I’m certain most creative people share many similar paths to the fruition of an idea. Sometimes a vision will surrender itself quite early, but generally it seems to take time for all the little synapses to flitter about and get organized before they can pitch to your brain. I’ve not yet figured out exactly how to best keep those synapses happy and productive. With music, art or fine food maybe. I always try to serve my story, first and foremost, giving it a bit of room to breathe. That was the great thing about The Next Big Idea, because you can take a small idea and just let it go and just create itself…

High standards The truth is when I first encountered the [original] Big Idea – when I first went on to the site and saw the films from Glue Society, Logan, all those amazing filmmakers – I realized the standard was incredibly high, so I thought, “Well, am I in this league?” And I love a challenge.

Backward progress My original concept was to use an old window as a way to see into a new world – to see the future in the present through a device from the past. When I discovered the vast amount of archival material on the site, I started playing with era and genre to see what an old film from the early 1900s might have looked like if it were made today using modern camera and editing techniques. From there, the film clips informed the idea and vice versa, and The Future Box was born. It has past, present and future all wrapped up in one 60-second, 1920s action film with a magic twist!

View Morgan’s pitch (PDF)

Changing reputations I wanted to challenge myself as a director using stock footage because I had always thought it was the domain of documentarians and corporate videos and so on. I never really thought as a narrative storyteller that stock footage could be used on my final product outside of a wide establishing shot of a city, perhaps, but I found as soon as I logged on to the site and started looking at clips, the creative editor in me started to try and piece these wonderful moments together to form stories – so the possibilities became quite endless. I had to be really decisive about what remained on the cutting room floor and what was relevant and useful to best serve this story and the idea. In many ways, the process truly reinforced the necessary skill set required by any director to take a film from script to screen.

See the effects edit View QuickTime

Three films that have inspired your work? Georges Mélies’s Le Voyage dans la lune (1902); a German Expressionist film by Robert Wiene, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920); and American action film noirs from the 1940s and 1950s. With all the past, present and future ideas I was trying to reflect, I’d also have to mention Chris Marker’s La Jetée (1962).

Morgan with fellow finalist Santiago Sierra at The Next Big Idea premiere in Sydney, Australia. 71207344, Getty Images

Competitive bid I think film right now is in a really interesting place, and I use the term film in a holistic way, you know, to encompass digital content, as well as purists who shoot with film. People are always going to have an insatiable desire to watch films to look into the worlds of other people, whether they are some type of documentary or narrative story, so people are always going to be wanting that content, but right now I think the means of delivery, that’s what’s changing. Because film is so accessible, you get a camera, go out and shoot, cut it, lay sound, upload it to YouTube or whatever, and you’re a filmmaker! That’s scary, because in many ways it dilutes the playing field. Your ability to stand out in the crowd, and be seen as a filmmaker – as a professional – is a little more difficult. It means you have to try harder, and be a little different or a little more unique in the way you approach your craft, and that’s cool, I think that’s great. The technology may be at a place where everybody can get a camera easily or access editing equipment more easily, but you still have to have a certain amount of ability. Just because you have the software, it doesn’t mean you are good at using it. I can use Final Cut Pro – doesn’t make me an editor. It makes me someone who can use Final Cut Pro.

If The Next Big Idea were a plate of food? A very large bowl of alphabet noodle soup. Though, now that I know what a slippery and elusive figure the big idea is, I might question whether it’s merely masquerading as a plate of food.