Sian Morton wins national film competition

Sian Morton, Head Girl of Whitworth Community High School

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Sian Morton, a would-be film maker, who already has a hugely popular YouTube channel, turned her talent to a serious issue and won a national competition.

Sian, 16, is Head Girl at Whitworth Community High School and was encouraged to enter the competition to create a short film of up to five-minutes on climate change by her science teacher Emma Trivett.

Sian said: “I was told about it on the Wednesday and the deadline was the Friday, but I decided to have a go.

“I wrote a script and went through archive footage that I already had and put the film together from that. I researched climate change and what it means to me.

“It is a very serious subject and it took me a while to find out all about it and I linked it to a film I had made on a trip to Iceland this summer.”

While in Iceland she filmed a glacier that was a fraction of the size it used to be as a direct result of climate change.

As she had to turn the film around in such a short time, Sian, from Shawclough, was not expecting to win.

Then she got an invitation to attend the Manchester Science Festival as a VIP where the film was going to be shown.

Along she went with her parents Kelly and Mark, to Texture, a bar in the Northern Quarter of Manchester, however they all got a shock when Sian’s film was announced as the winner of the Young People Short Film competition.

Film maker Adam Chodzko, who created the film Deep Above about climate change, had selected the winner.

Sian said: “It was definitely a proud mummy moment; my mum was delighted. My film was shown alongside Adam Chodsko’s Deep Above.”

After GCSEs, Sian is planning to study A levels at Rochdale Sixth Form in media, film, music and music technology.

She said: “I did want to go into film making before but this has inspired me to do it even more.”

During the summer she also gained marketing experience when she worked with a company and designed a logo for her own T-shirts.

She then promoted the clothing on YouTube and sold out of the 70 T-shirts in 10 days.

Her YouTube channel Sianxy has 21,000 subscribers and offers viewers her quirky take on life with regular new videos. She has a second vlogging channel on YouTube More Sianxy, where the climate change video has been posted.