IT sounds almost too good to be true . . . or like a script from a Hollywood movie.

A Hampshire filmmaker has been short-listed in an international competition where the first prize is $1 million plus a “dream job” with Universal Pictures in Hollywood.

James Bedford, 40, from Whitchurch near Andover, submitted a short video advertisement for the Doritos Crash the Super Bowl Contest and has made it to the final ten from thousands of entries.

The PepsiCo snack brand has presented some of the most talked-about Super Bowl commercials of all time.

For the second year in a row, Doritos opened up the competition to fans around the world and this year’s finalists include a record four advertisements from outside of the United States – including James’s which is the first from the UK.

For the ninth consecutive year, the brand will broadcast the two best Doritos advertisements to the world before revealing the winner.

All of the ten finalists have been invited on an all-expenses paid trip to the event on February 1 in Arizona where they will discover their fate!

James told the Daily Echo: “I’m super excited. The competition has only gone global in the last couple of years – it’s really amazing.”

Self-employed as a film, commercial and brand content director and creative director with his company Filmekanik, James added: “It’s not a big budget commercial. I’m a freelance director. I do branded content and smaller commercials. I’ve always wanted to do something more creative and the video brief for Doritos was to be as crazy as you want.

“It’s hard to say what is the most exciting thing about the prize – the money or the job! And it’s in Hollywood! My dream would be to work there and make feature films. To have a chance of that is really, really exciting!”

Married with a four-month-old son, Zacchary, James added that his wife Felicity was really excited about the competition but he added: “We haven’t made any plans as it’s a one in ten chance so we don’t want to get too carried away. But it’s a really good opportunity that would be too good to miss.”

The ten finalists, hailing from Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States, were selected from nearly 4,900 submissions representing 29 countries around the world. Two of the 10 television commercials will be selected to air during Super Bowl XLIX, the championship game of the National Football League in the United States, which is viewed annually by more than 100 million The grand prize winner will be selected by fan votes on www.doritos.com and the other advertisement that airs will be selected by the Doritos brand. Fans can view all ten of the finalists and vote for their favourite on www.doritos.com until January 28 at 11.59pm CST.

James’s advertisement is called ‘Doritos Angler’. Asked if he had invested much money in it he said: “I spent £10 – the cost of a couple of trout from Tesco’s . . . and some worms!

“I treated it as a mini Hollywood epic. I cast one trout as the lead stunt man who would jump around but when I had my back turned a water rat ran out and snatched him. There were a lot of fishermen hanging around who probably thought ‘who is this man shouting at fish!’ And I know nothing about fishing.

“The idea for the ad was to have a fish that was bold and brave who turns the table on the fisherman. Disturbed by the crunch of the man’s eating he jumps along the river bank and grabs the Doritos. The brand is all about being bold and the crunch!”

The ten finalists were selected from 29 semi-finalists’ advertisements by a qualified panel of judges, including executives from the Doritos brand, advertising professionals, and actress/producer Elizabeth Banks — who is making her directorial debut on Pitch Perfect 2 and has starred in films such as The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Seabiscuit, and Pitch Perfect, as well as global franchises such as The Lego Movie, The Hunger Games and Spider-Man.

James revealed that the actress called him herself to break the news that he had made the final ten – when he was having a particularly bad day.

“I’d broken down on the way home from work and didn’t get home until 9pm when the phone was ringing. It was Elizabeth Banks telling me congratulations and I was just in shock. Now the competition has started for real!”

The actress said: “It has been an incredible experience to lend a hand in selecting the finalists for this year’s Crash the Super Bowl programme. I’m excited to see which ad captures the hearts of fans and which filmmaker will win the life-changing opportunity to work at Universal.”

Ann Mukherjee, president of PepsiCo Global Snacks Group and PepsiCo Global Insights, said: “Doritos fans continue to impress us with their creativity and enthusiasm for the brand. When we started this contest nine years ago it was one of the first and best examples of user generated content, and the brand was bold enough to present it on one of the world’s biggest stages. Carrying on that tradition, this year’s entries are some of the best ads we’ve seen yet and in only the second year since we opened up the contest to a global audience, almost half of the finalists come from outside of the United States. We have ten outstanding advertisements and I look forward to seeing which ad fans will select to take home the grand prize.”

Even if James doesn’t win he will not leave empty handed. The eight finalists whose commercials do not air during the broadcast will each win $25,000. The runner-up whose advertisement airs, but does not receive the most fan votes, will win $50,000.

The Super Bowl XLIX broadcast is set for Sunday, February 1, 2015, on NBC in the United States and local broadcast networks around the world.