A Garrison teenager has had his short film broadcast on E4 this week after winning a competition run by the British Film Institute (BFI).

16-year-old Aaron Leonard, a Creative Media student at South West College in Enniskillen entered the BFI’s ‘See Yourself on Screen’ challenge over the summer, which offered young people the chance of creating and broadcasting their original short film to a UK audience.

To enter, Aaron had to come up with an idea for a short film.

“I had to pitch an idea for the short film, I had a 30 second video to do so. You could also write a pitch as well and you had 200 words, so it was very short. You had very little time and space to work with so you had to try to get to the point as quickly as you could,” Aaron told The Impartial Reporter, talking about the entry process.

After judging by a panel of industry experts and UK broadcasters connected to the BFI, Aaron was selected as the winner of his age category (14-18).

“It was pretty exciting. When you enter these kinds of competitions, you don’t expect to win,” he said.

As part of his prize, Aaron was given a masterclass with Made In Chelsea star Jamie Laing before he went off to shoot his short film.

“I had a mentor session with Jamie and we discussed some stuff. I sent them scripts and they modified it and told me to make sure it fit E4 and eventually I was good to go and film.

“He was really interested. He was really fun to talk to and he was really engaging. He sounded like he really did care which was great,” Aaron enthused as he relayed his experience of being mentored by Jamie.

Titled ‘Bucket List’, Aaron shot his film over two days using equipment that he borrowed from the South West College Erne campus.

“I borrowed some cameras and stuff from there because I’m doing Creative Media there. I went out with my friend and we recorded it in two days,” said Aaron.

After he had finished the filming process, Aaron sent his footage over to the team at E4 to edit.

“I didn’t know what it was going to look like,” he said, noting that he didn’t get to see his film before it aired on E4 on Tuesday morning (October 26), however he was very happy with the outcome.

“I was pretty anxious before I did see it, but I’m glad I made it,” he added.

Aaron’s short film was broadcast again on Wednesday morning and it will be shown once more tomorrow morning (Friday, October 29).

Enjoying the experience, Aaron hopes to follow a career in screenwriting.

“I’ve always wanted to create stories so I’d love to do writing for TV shows and things like that,” he told this newspaper.