Film Makers Use Trick to Create #1 Movie in US
On June 10, a movie called “Unsubscribe” became the surprise #1 movie in the United States. It was watched in a theater in Westhampton Beach, New York by just two people.
That probably sounds a little puzzling. Here’s how it worked.
Movies get their “box office” ranking by how much money they make in ticket sales. Because of the coronavirus pandemic, most movie theaters in the US are closed, so the box office sales for most films are extremely low.
Actor Eric Tabach and film maker Christian Nilsson came up with a plan to beat those low numbers and become #1. Mr. Nilsson wrote a simple 29 minute movie. Mr. Tabach got several friends to help him shoot the movie over the video-calling program Zoom in just five days.
(Source: Eric Tabach/Jake Wisotsky.)
In a few weeks, the movie was ready. Then came the trick. The two film makers rented an entire movie theater, and bought all the tickets to their own movie. Since they also got the money from the ticket sales, the only money they really spent was the money they used to rent the theater.
In all, their movie “made” $25,488 on June 10, enough to make it the #1 movie in the US.
Weather Man Turns His Lawn Into a Map
Adam Krueger reports on the weather for the TV station Spectrum News in Austin, Texas. In May, he surprised a lot of people by turning his back yard into a huge weather map.
Normally, weather presenters stand in front of a green screen which allows computers to make the green background disappear. The blank background can then be replaced by the weather map that the presenter is talking about.
Instead of a TV studio, Mr. Krueger is currently working from home. But he realized that the fake grass in his back yard was so green that he could use it as a green screen.
(Source: Adam Krueger, Twitter screenshot, Spectrum News Austin.)
And that’s just what he did. Mr. Krueger’s first report, which gave the history of two tornadoes which hit Austin in 1922, was a big success. Mr. Krueger’s video got so much attention that now he is making weather videos in his back yard regularly. He calls the series “Weather on the Lawn”.
Fisherman Catches Statue that May Be 700 Years Old
In early June, fisherman Fernando Brey was wading in the Sar River near Santiago de Compostela, Spain. As he fished, he stumbled over a stone. But when he looked more closely, he realized it wasn’t just any stone.
Part of the stone was square, which Mr. Brey thought was unusual for a river stone. Then he slowly noticed the rest of the statue.
What he had tripped over was a religious statue of the Virgin Mary and baby Jesus. Local experts believe the heavy granite statue is from the 1300s and may have come from a church that existed in the area long ago.
(Source: Xunta de Galicia.)
Experts will study the statue further to get a better idea of how old the statue is and where it came from. They’re also very curious about how it remained in the river, so close to a city, without being discovered for hundreds of years.