3 posts tagged “anne of green gables”
I really developed an original story that pretty much took Anne away from Green Gables, it took her to another place, another time, she and Gilbert split up but were brought together again under difficult circumstances. But in creating that I really had to pull all these threads together and really find my own sense of where Anne’s character was going to go. I found the technique of keeping Anne and Gilbert apart and trying to conform their relationship as being the lynchpin in how to depict their relationship on screen. I looked at so many types of stories that were from that era and tried to find the similarities in terms of what a lot of these characters faced and with what a lot of the female characters faced. I also wanted to see where romantic relationships went in the stories and how they were depicted. So out of that I was inspired to come up with a new story that took Anne and Gilbert’s lives apart and then back together again. Then peppered the story with all sorts of unusual and Montgomery-esque characters and tried to find a sense of humour as well. In some ways it was a much more gothic story and difficult story to tell because it was broader in scope, it was longer and it was much more of a location film. Also it was made in the shadow of the overwhelming success of Anne of Green Gables. My goal is to tell in some ways a much more profound story, a deeper story that really dealt with Anne and Gilbert as original characters. It told how their lives would be dismantled and how they would have to reconstruct their lives together as a couple as opposed to getting together in Anne of Green Gables and spending the rest of their lives there. It was an interesting journey as a filmmaker.
After the first two Anne of Green Gables were made, doing a sequel to them was about as far from my mind as doing an on-going series. I thought the whole thing was finished and done with. I’d enjoyed making the film and enjoyed working with so many unique performers but was looking to do other films and I was met with this wash of enthusiasm. It sort of surprised me. I had everyone saying, “what happens?”. So both broadcasters came back to me and asked me if I would consider doing another Anne of Green Gables. They wanted me to look at the other books but I couldn’t see anything that I was interested in telling. The stories were delightful but they didn’t have that profound effect that I felt Montgomery had achieved in the fist Anne once I had come to understand the characters and the literary work. So I was faced with the fact that if I was going to do anything to do with Anne of Green Gables, I was going to have to invent a story and it took me awhile to get my head around that notion. I read all the later books and out of that I began to extract a sense of Montgomery’s style of character, where she’d go with people and how she’s used them. There were bits and pieces of characters that I liked that I sometimes molded into a completely original character so that it would have an authentic flavor to it and would sound like it was written by Montgomery.
Road to Avonlea was definitely a show that drew the viewer into the story and a big part of its power was its beautiful score. Every episode underwent an original musical score by composers John Welsman and Don Gillis. For many episodes a full 40-piece orchestra was used. A leitmotiv was created for each main character; this helped define their evolving action over the course of many episodes. Special guest stars also had leitmotivs created for them, guest stars such as Christopher Lloyd, Faye Dunaway and Michael York. For those who paid especially close attention, Michael York’s leitmotiv, the famous Captain Crane Theme, evolved into the popular theme for Gus Pike. I was so pleased when John Welsman put together a beautiful CD of the music from Road to Avonlea, since it is such an integral part of the series. The CD is included as a bonus in the purchase of the Road to Avonlea Season 6 DVD box set available at the online Sullivan Boutique.
