Cracked Slate

Cracked Slate is a production company dedicated to creating transformative works of classic literature. The team is currently developing a modern adaptation of Anne of Green Gables. We're excited to retell Anne's story. This is very much a labor of love.

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Hair Claws // Studio Jaybee on Etsy

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“This is Teddy. He’s found several clues that indicate there’s a good boy around here somewhere. Maybe you’ve seen him. 14/10″

(via)

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We’re definitely still working on it, definitely haven’t cancelled it, and are thrilled that you’re looking forward to it! This gives us all the warm-fuzzy-feelings that you can possibly imagine.

Here’s where we are as of now:

We’re solidly in development writing both our live-action web series (three seasons) and an original series to accompany Anne’s story. We’re also planning a cascading network of interactive transmedia stories told on multiple social media platforms. All of these elements will work in tandem, which means they must be planned in detail before we can begin production.

Anne is our kindred spirit. She deserves a big, wildly imaginative, transformative story. We love her too much to fall short of that.

Stay tuned! We’ll we have more to share very soon.

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Jonathan Crombie, 'Anne of Green Gables' Actor, Dies at 48

We were deeply saddened to hear of Jonathan Crombie's death this week. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family and his many fans. He was our Gilbert and he always will be.

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Velociraptors are important…

Long distance collaboration is a challenge. The members of Cracked Slate live all over the United States and Canada, and because of this we’ve chosen to use many online collaboration tools. Asana, WriterDuet, RealtimeBoard, Google Drive, and Google Hangouts--they’ve become vital to our development. In many ways they are as much our friends as the people we have met doing this because they have allowed us to connect in the first place. 

At this writing very few of our team have met in person. Even Katie, Katie, Hannah, and I have never been in the same room together. We’ve talked and laughed ad nauseam, but never in the same physical space. Yet that has never affected our ability to connect and create together. We share a common love and goal, and these tools are merely a means of collaborating to make it happen.

Make no mistake, though—when we do meet in person, that moment will be epic and there will be no need for Google Hangout. 

In the meantime, we collaborate through space, time, and the interwebs. Like all creative projects, we have all sorts of code words that mean very little to anyone else and random ideas that will never see the light of day—to include strange middle-of-the-night discussions regarding penguins dressed as velociraptors. (Yes, really.) And as crazy as that sounds, these moments are important. They allow us to connect with each other and to our story in odd and magical ways. The distance simply does not matter. These moments of genesis do.

So if, in the middle of the night, you receive a mysterious email from one of us saying that we simply must have a hand-knit penguin dressed as a velociraptor that looks something like this, there is no cause for alarm. We have not lost our minds. It simply means that we are busy—very busy—collaborating together across the internet to create a story that we love and hope you will love too.

- Meredith

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I met Anne in the summer. I was thirteen and at camp. My mom had tucked the book into my suitcase because she thought Anne would be a good companion for my foray into the woods. She was right. To my younger self, Anne was permission—permission to use long, unwinding sentences, to marvel at nature instead of a Cosmo cover, and to love stories with a fierce ambition. Now, as an adult, Anne continues to give me permission. She reminds me that the world has kindred people in it and that I still need imagination more than ever. 

-Katie

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When I was eleven, my grandmother handed me a copy of Anne of Green Gables and said, "This is where our folks are from." I was gravely disappointed to learn later that our folks were from Cape Breton, not PEI. (Then I went to Cape Breton and all was forgiven.)

I grew up in suburban NYC; I was Matthew Cuthbert levels of shy, but inside I felt as passionate and imaginative as Anne. I bought the rest of the series with my allowance, one book per week. I was so excited about Windy Poplars that I chattered at the lady at the register in the bookstore instead of awkwardly handing her money and tiptoeing away. My feelings were much too big to be contained. Anne helped me find my voice.  

We visited PEI when I was fifteen, and I agree with Anne that it must be one of the most beautiful places on earth. I wandered L. M. Montgomery's garden on a lovely July day with a group of beaming Japanese honeymooners. It was perfect. - Katie

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It’s amazing to me to think that it’s already been a year since we embarked on this crazy, wonderful, delightfully creative (and sometimes insane) journey. It feels like just yesterday that I published my initial tumblr post inquiring if people were interested in brainstorming or helping, and I still remember how floored I was by the response. Now, twelve months later we have a team of over twenty incredibly talented and enthusiastic people working on an amazing story we can’t wait to share with you all.

There’s still a long way to go, and juggling a project of this size with full time jobs and families and life is certainly not always easy; but we are so much closer to making it a reality, and it helps to knowing that so many of you out there are already supporting us with your interest in and excitement for this project.

So thank you all so very much for joining us on this roller coaster of a ride. Hang on tight because there’s much, much more to come!

- Hannah

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Cracked Slate turned 1 this weekend!

It’s official. One year ago we made the crazy decision to create our own web series adapting the story of Anne Shirley.

All week we will be posting reflections from the team about what a year this has been and what Anne means on a personal level.  Help us celebrate and share your own Anne stories along the way!

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Happy Birthday, L.M. Montgomery!

Today we celebrate the life of Lucy Maud Montgomery.

She brought us Anne. She also brought us Gilbert. Those two, along with the entire universe of characters from Avonlea, are such a beautiful thing. Lucky for us she didn't stop there. She also brought us Emily, Rilla and Valancy. Teddy, Walter and Barney. And these are only a few. So many stories. So many beloved characters.

Who is your favorite?

Montgomery's stories are magical. Her characters fantastic and we simply can't imagine living in a world where they did not exist.

Happy Birthday.

Thank you for sharing your stories with us.

Because when you are imagining, you might as well imagine something worth while ― L.M. Montgomery

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November 11, 2014

“But if you have big ideas you have to use big words to express them, haven't you?”

As members of the Cracked Slate Marketing Team, we are constantly looking for the right words to describe Project AoGG. Sometimes we’re explaining transmedia to someone who’s never watched a web series. Other times we’re describing our story’s scope and narrative structure to potential funders. A lot of the times we’re debating what to say to all our fabulous followers who already know all about transmedia and are waiting patiently to hear every last detail of this story. We think of you the most.

We met some of you in person at VidCon, and we have gotten to know some of you through the AoGG Challenge and some fantastic fan art. Now we have a short survey to get to know the rest of you a bit more. By taking a "Cracked Slate Census," we can learn more about you and give you the best experience possible. If you've ever wanted to share something with us, to tell us about a new challenge that you'd like to see, or to know how many Cracked Slate fans are in your neck of the woods, here is your chance:

Click here for the survey!

Thank you all. We will continue to search for the best and biggest words to express our gratitude for all of you.

- Lauren, Paisley, and Sammie

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October 28, 2014

Last January we, Katie & Katie, started developing the story for Project AoGG. We’ve had countless Google Hangouts (including an unplanned six hour chat about Gilbert), re-read the books together, and did a ton of research. We grew up with Anne and ended up sharing a lot of our own personal histories to help us find a new, modern story for Anne. We’re dedicated to honoring L.M. Montgomery’s novels, but also to figuring out who Anne would be in 2014. Our starting point was Anne’s imagination; it’s epic and deserves all the scope we can give it.

We have three seasons of Project AoGG planned and our writing team has spent the summer and fall writing scripts for Season One. They’re passionate and dedicated. Also, hilarious. We have learned a lot, including what it’s like to go from being fans to being creators. We know the story we want to tell is complex, and we want to get it right. Yulin Kuang had a great post recently about script revision:

Making movies is a weird process of just repeatedly beating up the thing you love…

We adore Anne, so we’re taking the time we need to do her justice. Currently, we are editing Season One scripts and refining our Season Two treatment. Our transmedia story is ambitious because there's an original story-within-the-story, which we've decided to tell in full. That has meant a lot of extra work for our writing and transmedia teams, but Anne deserves a world as vibrant as she is.

Katie & Katie

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Jess Mariano Is Josie Pye: Your Definitive Character Guide To Stars Hollow and Avonlea

"HERE is your Marilla. A crusty exterior that belies a gooey, gushing heart? Check. A propensity for womanish reading glasses in later seasons? Check. Talks a big game about NO CELL PHONES and GET OUT FROM BEHIND MY COUNTER SOOKIE but ready to build you a chuppah for your wedding at a moment’s notice? Check, check, and check."

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October 14, 2014

It’s been over ten months now since we first embarked on this journey and a lot has happened since that time. Behind the scenes, everyone on our team has been busy working towards our final goal of bringing you a web series featuring our favorite red-head. This is a huge project, and although we’re working on finalizing a start date, we’d like to take a moment now to let you know what we’ve spent the fall doing.

Two or three evenings a week, at least one of our writing, design, marketing, transmedia, and administrative teams of talented and amazing volunteers meet in Google Hangouts to dream, scheme, and plan our series.

We’re pursuing multiple funding options so we can bring you the whole story we want to tell from start to finish.

This is a transformative work, and our writers are dedicated to telling a great story. Story arcs and scripts are being written and revised so that we’re ready to go once we start production.

We’ve begun to build a production team with professionals who will help make this a great series.

We still have lots of things to do before we have a show but we’re much closer than we were ten months ago. Your support and enthusiasm for the project have been invaluable to us, and we look forward to being able to share even more with you in the coming months.

Sincerely,

Cracked Slate Productions Hannah, Katie, Katie, and Meredith

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Kindred Spirits

I wanted to make something cute for Halloween :3

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Aww, Kindred Spirits.

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Do you have any news for us?

Yes, you can expect an update this week as well as more frequent updates from our various teams in the following weeks. Thanks for checking in!