'Coronavegas': Filmmaker depicts post-apocalyptic Las Vegas amid coronavirus shutdown
LAS VEGAS - Film is usually art imitating life. But in Michael Tushaus’ “Coronavegas” video, life more closely resembles a movie set in a post-apocalyptic world.Las Vegas — a city that receives an estimated 43 million annual visitors according to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority — practically became a ghost town when Nevada Governor Steve Sisolak ordered a month-long closure of “non-essential businesses.”
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Those non-essential businesses included the city’s numerous iconic casinos and resorts.
Tushaus captured footage of the empty Sin City streets on March 26, saying that he “simply wanted to document what we’re all witnessing here.
“I could have chosen various different styles, but my choice here was to simply let the visuals tell the story. I didn’t create the scenes, I just filmed what was there,” Tushaus told Storyful.
The award-winning filmmaker used eerie-sounding music to accompany his slow voyage through the Las Vegas Strip, driving home a ghostly emotion.
“Just like the millions of visitors who come to Vegas, I wanted the viewer to have the perspective of going up and down the strip and the streets of Vegas, just as if they were watching out their car window,” Tushaus said. “I wanted people to see how my own city was being impacted.”
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Similar shutdowns have occurred in major cities all over the world. Officials hope that by eliminating large gatherings of people, the spread of the virus will be impeded.
Nevada has accounted for more than 1,000 coronavirus cases. Dozens of people have succumbed to the disease, KVVU reported.
This story was reported from Atlanta.