The Transport Accident Commission’s Split-Second film competition offers filmmakers a creative platform to communicate key road safety messages.
The Transport Accident Commission (TAC) has played a number of roles for the Victorian community since its establishment nearly 40 years ago. In 1987, it was founded as a no-fault insurer for motorists, but has since grown into a multi-faceted organisation promoting general road safety through various means, which range from written road safety implementation strategies and insurance options to, as of more recently, community event showcases.
One such example is the TAC’s annual Split-Second film competition, which invites filmmakers from around the state to submit concepts for short movies that address imperative road safety concepts. The TAC has run the competition for seven years, with this iteration receiving hundreds of submissions portraying many different road issues, under a plethora of themes.
Split-Second’s most recent event in 2025 centred around road safety accidents among young people – a group that continues to be over-represented in road trauma according to the TAC. The competition accepted submissions from creators between the ages of 18 and 30, to ensure the winning films would communicate concepts to the young driver demographic effectively.
The competition’s two winners, Shane Senanayake and Stacey Park, were selected for their unique and compelling films focused on seatbelt use and low-level speeding, respectively.
Senanayake entered the competition with no formal film training, but instead a passion for movie-making which has spilled into a full-time career.
“I loved making movies as a child,” he says. “But then I decided to study accounting, and pursued that as a job, which is obviously different. However, I soon realised I wasn’t fulfilled by my work, and knew that I liked being creative, so I just quit out of nowhere to begin a video production company, Identity and Beyond, with my mate.
“We mostly do video advertising for businesses. I’ve loved jumping back into it, and being creative for a purpose, or for making some kind of impact.”
This made him an ideal candidate for the competition.
Senanayake’s film, Unusual Behaviours, communicated the risk of not wearing a seatbelt through humour. The road risk was explored with a metaphor of not wearing pants, highlighting the absurdity of the choice, and how some bad habits can be passed down through tradition.
Senanayake says the unique idea was the result of the competition brief’s open-ended nature, which provided him with a great creative licence.
“The brief’s instructions weren’t to portray certain statistics or specific situations on the road,” he says. “It very simply asked us to communicate the importance of wearing a seatbelt. The lack of parameters meant there was much more room for me to get creative without losing the message itself.
“A line in the brief said, ‘people who don’t wear seatbelts often don’t because of how they grew up’, and the idea of learned behaviour seemed like a great opportunity to be silly and fun.”
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Senanayake feels that people can be more receptive to lessons explained with humour than drama in some cases and, in his film, utilised this to explain the dangerous action in a light-hearted yet resonant manner.
The competition also provided Senanayake with an invaluable opportunity to be exposed to professional filmmaking.
“I was very involved with the end product,” he says. “I got to meet the talent agency, Taboo, and the production company, Truce, which supported the film’s production. The director and I discussed my idea, pitched it to TAC, and worked together on all the aspects of production. Casting, sound design, colour grading, editing – everything.
“It was all brand-new to me, and was such a great education. I wanted to learn from the best, and definitely got that experience. This was the first film competition I entered, and it won’t be the last.”
Similarly, Park entered the Split-Second competition with a deep admiration for filmmaking as an art form, despite her different career direction.
“I came into filmmaking from a place outside the traditional path,” she says. “I’m not a filmmaker by trade, and don’t identify myself as a creative at all. Currently, I work as a doctor in a public hospital in Melbourne, but I’ve always had a keen interest in the space.”
Throughout her life, Park has been an active film watcher, and has volunteered at many film festivals. The TAC’s competition marked the first time she submitted her own movie material.
Park’s film, Keep the Tempo, revolved around the safety risk of low-level speeding through tension and the metaphor of music. She compared the act to that of a drummer gradually playing his music faster than the ensemble band he is a part of, and ruining the music, highlighting that even a slight deviation from a given speed can have negative consequences.
“When I first read the briefing, I immediately made a connection between slightly speeding and going a little ‘offbeat’,” Park says, “since we weren’t allowed to include any cars or explicit road imagery.
“That immediately took me to music, and the ideas of both tempo and acceleration.”
The type of drumming Park featured – traditional Korean Samul Nori drumming – was critical to the film for two key reasons. Firstly, the style is energetic and percussive, a fitting parallel to speeding that connects with audiences. Secondly, it is culturally significant to Park and her background.
“Samul Nori is something I appreciate due to my Korean background, and it places an emphasis on rhythm, collective timing, and physicality,” she says. “I thought that given my personal experiences with it, and the fact that I know a group who practices it in Melbourne, using it in my film would support the TAC’s message really well.”
During the production process, Park preferred to work as a general overseer, partially due to her work commitments in regional hospitals at the time. But her experience with the Split-Second competition, along with the final product of the film itself, has given her a taste for other filmmaking ventures.
“The end product of the movie was truly beyond my expectations, and has made me want to do this more,” she says. “I think coming from a non-creative background is a strength of mine in this space, because I have no fear when it comes to applying for these things. I don’t think anyone expects me to win, and that gives me the freedom to try anything.”
Senanayake and Park’s winning films draw upon their unique approaches and experiences to portray the TAC’s road safety messages effectively. The two films are available to view on the TAC website.
This article was originally published in the May edition of our magazine. To read the magazine, click here
