That is the premise of award- winning and internationally acclaimed short film No Good Deed, written, filmed and produced by Launceston trio Michael O'Neill, Dylan Hesp and Nick Waldron.

After hearing they had beaten 449 others to win the student category of the Sony Production Awards in England on Thursday, the young filmmakers shared their thoughts on the film's success, their inspiration and secrets on what makes a great short film.

"We wrote it around the phrase `no good deed goes unpunished'," O'Neill said.

"The idea being that it's about a guy, who without realising it, runs into a street kid who's obviously in some trouble. The man then has to decide what he wants to do.

"The problem with student films is that they're all the same, so we wanted to produce something that made people say `wow, this is different'."

With inspiration from Martin Scorsese and Shane Meadows in mind, the trio of mates admitted their concept was rushed, but it paid dividends.

"I've always been keen to do this," Hesp said.

"It's really just a great excuse to get to work with other people and also have your work displayed on a credible level. All these guys we picked because we loved working together," he said.

"I saw way too late that the competition deadline was coming up, so I thought we really need to just shoot something we can do in one night, because all of these guys have school and stuff like that," O'Neill added.

.. then we shot it from about 8pm until midnight."

"We submitted it just on deadline."

Shot entirely in a Launceston backstreet, the short film certainly won't be the crew's last, however.

"We do have plans for another competition and we'll be working on a film over the next couple of months," Hesp said.