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In 1994, George A. Romero traveled to Valencia Community College in central Florida to make a short film about a swamp-dwelling bigfoot called Jacaranda Joe. Largely unknown and presumed lost, a copy of the film was discovered in the University of Pittsburgh Library System’s Romero archive.
I've been speaking to crew members who worked on George A. Romero's Jacaranda Joe and will have a more substantial update soon, but, briefly, the film was the second installment of an innovative program devised by Valencia Community College faculty member Ralph Clemente that brough established filmmakers to campus to direct a short film.
Last week, I joined Media Curator Miriam Meislik and Steven Haines, local archivist and proprieter of Flea Market Films, to inspect the nine reels of 35mm film recovered from Jacaranda Joe, George Romero's once-lost short film made in 1994. Several of the reels were visibly damaged, with warping and sticking making it dangerous to even unroll the film.
Last week, the University of Pittsburgh Library System received original 35mm camera footage from the filming of Jacaranda Joe, George Romero's lost film. The film requires an assessment and preservation work before we can examine it in depth, but, for the moment, here's a remarkable look behind the scenes of the studio used by Valencia Community College. Take a look at the guy in the background!
In June 1994, George Romero traveled to Valencia College in Florida to make a short film called Jacaranda Joe. It was a re-imagined version of a movie he'd tried to make in the 1970s called The Footage, about a TV show in which a famous athlete learns to hunt alongside a handful of experienced outdoorsmen that stumbles onto a bigfoot community.
