Anita Clearfield
Tired of having good weather to shoot in all the time, producer/director
Anita Clearfield left Los Angeles in the mid-'90s to
take up the challenges of Maine video production. Still living
near LA (Lewiston/Auburn that is), Clearfield soon grew to
cherish snow days and working in flannel pajamas - her
husband moved his video production business to the carriage
house of their 1810 farmhouse. It actually took several years
for most clients to realize she had left California (800
number, fax and e-mail being what it is).
Clearfield had
been interested in art and photography since growing up in
Denver - which led in a roundabout way
to a B.F.A. in film at Syracuse University in New York. After
graduating, she went to work for KPIX-TV, the CBS affiliate
in San Francisco as an editor. In S.F., she received a grant
to make her first PBS production, "Olivia Records:
More Than Music," a half-hour documentary focusing on
the women's recording company, their politics and music.
She also co-produced and edited "Angela Davis: Walls
into Bridges," a look at the activist as professor.
Highlights
of her years in Los Angeles included receiving an American
Film Institute Independent Filmmaker's
grant to make a drama, "State of Mind," producing
a feature documentary, "Vacation Nicaragua," during
the contra war; as well as editing, production managing and/or
directing several music videos and long form music programs.
She also co-produced a 26-part documentary series on modern
advances in biology for educational distribution by Harcourt-Brace.
Clearfield
left the freelance life in 2001 for Maine Public Broadcasting Network and her first
corporate cubicle since production managing
at the Disney Studios in the early '80's. She
produced and directed two programs for SCHOOL ZONES, a video
documentary project that followed several Maine educators
for a school year. Involving herself in the lives of the
teachers, their families, students and schools was a demanding
but fulfilling experience...which may explain why she
signed up to work on another Maine Public Broadcasting Network series: QUEST. |
