Vaughan trio hopes video spurs monstrous jump in election interest

Yorkregion.com
Oct. 16, 2015
By Adam Martin-Robbins

A trio of budding filmmakers from Maple created a parody video, using Kanye West’s hit song Monster, that pokes fun at Canada’s three main party leaders.

And they’re hoping it will spur more young people to take an interest in the Oct. 19 federal election.

The video, launched late Thursday afternoon on YouTube, pits NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair, Liberal leader Justin Trudeau and Conservative leader Stephen Harper in a rap battle.

Dubbed Prime Monster, it stars Daniel Denino as Mulcair, Shane Preston as Trudeau and Thomas Santoro as Harper.

“It’s just a good way to get people who might not be interested (in the election) laughing and kind of engaged and maybe listen to what we’re saying,” Preston said. “I think a lot of young people are starting to get more into politics than they were before, but there are a lot of people that aren’t just as educated about it or aren’t as informed.”

Preston and Santoro are recent film studies graduates while Denino just started studying film after pursuing studies in classical music.

The video was a couple of weeks in the making from start to finish, Preston said.

They shot it in their spare time over Thanksgiving long weekend.

This is the second parody video created by the trio of 22-year-olds, who’ve been friends since high school.

Their first project called Straight Outta Vaughan, parodying N.W.A.’s Straight Outta Compton, plays on Vaughan stereotypes.

They filmed it in September to give their friends a laugh, but it wound up reaching a much wider audience than they imagined.

“That was a joke that we did for our own friends on Facebook and it hit 30,000 within three days,” Preston said. “That was very unexpected so we thought we should do something else.”

He hopes this latest video reaches even more people and has more of an impact.

“It even gave me a reason to do more research on the parties, which is something I wanted to do anyway before I vote because I think it’s really important that we all do our part,” he said.

“Hopefully people come for the laughs and maybe stay for something a little more.”