
Cranbrook Academy of Art students participate in the filming of Jazz, Joe Munro’s first experimental film, 1943. Cranbrook archives.
Born and raised in Michigan, Joe Munro worked at Cranbrook as a photographer and teacher. Here he works on his first film, Jazz, gesticulating wildly at his actors while his crew, made up entirely of CAA students, looks on. Munro left Cranbrook shortly after this film was completed, joining the US military and serving in WWII as a wartime photographer. With the end of the war he began a long career as a freelance photojournalist, working for LIFE, National Geographic, and Time Magazine. His archives are held by the Ohio Historical Society are definitely worth a look.
A short clip of the film (Courtesy Ohio Historical Society) can be seen at mark 35:17 of the presentation “Competition, Collaboration, and Connection: Cranbrook in 1939” posted here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEz-tEF-wQQ
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