This NYC tsunami scene is based on 9/11. The black steeple is Saint Paul’s Chapel downtown which was just a few blocks from the collapsing towers but miraculously was unscathed.
In the early height of the pandemic NYC was ground zero for the unchecked spread of the virus in America. The Republican president at the time offered little help since NYC is known to be a Democratic stronghold. The thought was to let the Democrats die. The policy of denial and minimization however backfired since Republicans began taking no precautions and died like flies. We have surpassed 1.5 million deaths from COVID in America and that number continues to rise. America leads the world in weekly confirmed COVID deaths. According to Our World in Data 890 Americans are dying every week from COVID as of the start of March. On average airlines carry 300 passengers per flight. In terms of the number of deaths, COVID is still resulting in about 3 airline crashes a week. Yet this is no longer news worthy as the economy is the priority. With an election coming up it is better to ignore the virus, claiming victory than to clean the air in schools and public buildings.
This scene was reanimated to be sure the resolution was high enough for a large movie screen. When I started animating I thought 1920 by 1080 would be a high enough resolution for each scene but I was wrong. Many scenes needed reworking so they are double that resolution.