By Ashley Legassic

Kamloops filmmaker hopes music video will help ‘take down walls’

Nov 13, 2018 | 2:19 PM

KAMLOOPS — A proposed music video has become a passion project for a local filmmaker, who recently received a $10,000 grant from Storyhive.

Vesta Giles is partnering with Brian Tate, a composer and conductor from Vancouver, who created a song called “Take Down These Walls” in response to the current U.S. White House administration’s plans and rhetoric around building a wall at the U.S.-Mexico border.

WATCH: This is Giles’ pitch video for Storyhive (Video Credit: YouTube / Vesta Giles)

“This song he originally wrote when he was at a choral conference in Washington D.C., and it was the beginning time that Donald Trump was starting to talk about building this wall,” says Giles. “Brian was just outraged, and his whole thing is not building walls — his whole thing is about tearing walls down… He just wrote this song and it’s been performed by more than 60 choirs around the world.”

Tate works with the City Soul Choir based out of Vancouver, which is comprised of 100 people who sing about peace, inclusion and being kind, Giles says. 

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To set this project apart, Giles says the team has recruited deaf performer Landon Krentz, who’s well known for deaf interpretation and deaf arts in Vancouver. He’ll be signing throughout the music video, which Giles says is an important part of the theme.

“We have a whole theme for hands, and how hands are the tools that we use to connect with people, and to build walls but also to tear walls down, all kinds of walls,” says Giles, “so we wanted to include sign language in it.”

Giles and her team are hoping to have all the filming complete in January, and the project is due in April. She urges Kamloops residents to support the local film scene.

“Storyhive is really getting to know Kamloops. I think there’s four projects going right now for Storyhive in Kamloops. If people see the option to vote for a Storyhive project, do it. Vote for Kamloops film productions because it’s really helping us build a film community here in Kamloops.”

Learn more about the Take Down These Walls project here.