Filmmaker Milford Thomas started out to completely replicate the 1920's filmmaking process with CLAIRE by shooting the film on an antique hand-crank 35mm Mitchell Standard camera, Some test footage was shot with lab film stocks close to the ultra-slow speed of film used back in the day. But enough experimentation to get a handle on these stocks was not possible within the limited budget, so Thomas and Director of Photography Jonathan Mellinger opted to cheat with a faster modern black and white stock.

The first fundraising event for CLAIRE took place at the old MJQ club (Atlanta) in early 1997. With enough funds in place, shooting began later that summer with a week's worth of exterior scenes in Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee. Two fundraising parties and a couple of locally-awarded grants later, interior scenes were done on a 14-day shoot in a donated warehouse facility the following Spring on sets created by scenic designer Michael Brewer and production designer Bentley Wood.

More money was slowly raised for processing and video transfer through yet more parties and a re-financing of the producer/director's home. Thomas intended to edit the film as a work-print (the old-fashioned way) but again, financial restrictions forced him to take another "cheater's" route. Transferred footage of CLAIRE was edited on an old vhs editing machine in the back of IMAGE film and video center! After the final cut was complete, an edit decision list of the keycode was compiled (it's SILENTno soundtrack to worry about!) and turned over to Teresa Dabbs, negative cutter. One more party and one more re-financing later, film prints were struck and composer Anne Richardson set about furiously writing the score.