Imagining life in a world about to self-destruct has paid off for former Korowal pupil, Conal Osfield.
His script about a boy born into a world on the edge of climate change-induced annihilation has won the Australia Film, Television and Radio School's (AFTRS) inaugural storytelling scholarship.
It will pay all tuition fees for the next three years as he completes his film studies.
"It [the winning script] follows a series of moment in a boy's life, growing up in rural Australia," Mr Osfield said.
"A few months after his birth, it was declared that climate change had become apocalyptic. So he was growing up in the face of extinction."
The 19-year-old, who was raised in Wentworth Falls but is now living in Sydney to study, said he didn't have to dig too deep to imagine how the boy felt.
"It's isn't especially difficult to extrapolate from where we are today."
Mr Osfield has been writing for years, including penning a script for his HSC English course.
English was his favourite subject, along with art - he was known as the "good drawer" in school - and film studies seemed "the natural conversion of those two subjects", he said.
It's been quite the start to the year for Mr Osfield. First he found out he had been accepted into the Bachelor of Arts Screen: Production course at the film school; a week later came the scholarship news.
"It's definitely been exciting," he said.
AFTRS director of curriculum and student registrar, Nell Greenwood, said Mr Osfield's script was chosen by the selection panel for his distinct point of view, originality and storytelling abilities.
"AFTRS has a clear mission to discover and enable diverse Australian voices and the storytelling scholarship was created to support this aim," Ms Greenwood said.
"The selection panel all agreed that Conal's application revealed an exciting talent that will be nurtured through his time at AFTRS. We believe he has a very promising future in the screen industry."
Mr Osfield's hope is to one day be a writer-director, controlling the "key component, which is crafting the story".
He would love to turn his scholarship-winning script into a short or feature film. But, while he can see climate change taking the planet into dangerous territory, he doesn't see world heading for destruction.
"I don't think it's will get that bad ... but it isn't a million miles from it."