Web Series Spotlight: Green Gables Fables

I have been an avid reader since high school, thanks in great part to my late Uncle Richard, a high school English teacher, who introduced me to the wonderful world of Anne of Green Gables when I was a freshman. Since that time I have devoured every book written by legendary Canadian authoress Lucy Maud Montgomery, have seen nearly every movie adaptation ever made of her classic character Anne Shirley and even have the hope to one day travel to Prince Edward Island to see Anne’s world for myself.

Now comes a new Anne Shirley in the form of Green Gables Fables, an online web series that is a modern adaptation of the literary character, following Anne and her friend Diana Barry, as told only as a modern-day story can be told: through vlogging, video “diary” entries made by Anne.

This new adaptation comes from Marie Trotter, Mandy Harmon and Alicia Whitson, “three full-time students (high school and university) and friends who love the Internet and storytelling”. They “decided to combine (these) two interests (together) and create a web series”. As the girls state on the official Green Gables Fables website, they had been “talking about starting a project like this for a while”, but they “weren’t sure which story (they) should take on”.

That is until Alicia, who serves as Head Writer on the web series, was “watching the Anne of Green Gables movie and realized Anne’s story would be perfect”. She contacted Mandy, who stars as title character Anne Shirley in the web series as well as serves as the cinematographer, and Marie, who serves as producer and transmedia director, and the rest, as they say, was history.

To date Green Gables Fables has aired 23 webisodes, seeing Anne Shirley moving in with a new foster family – siblings Marilla and Matthew – and getting to know her neighbors and new classmates. Typically a new video is released every Wednesday at 5 PM (Eastern Standard Time), however, given the fact the three girls are all full-time students, their schedule does not always coincide and other delays do happen. And, given that the web series is, as the girls’ state, “a no-budget production”, they use their own money to pay for expenses, but they do have advertisements on YouTube in the “hopes of not going into debt”.

For now, the girls plan to focus on Anne of Green Gables only, but if logistics work out to allow them to continue, they would love to adapt the next book in the series. “We love telling Anne’s story and know exactly where we want our Anne to go, but these fantasies are all dependent on our personal situations, geography, time, budget, and the sustainability of this project”.

If you would like to check out Green Gables Fables, please visit the official website. You can also find them at YouTube and you can follow them on Twitter @GGFables.

Join me in watching and supporting Green Gables Fables and becoming a “kindred spirit” of this new modern-day Anne Shirley!