American dramatic web series
Ragged Isle is a Maine-based dramatic web series that has won multiple Indie Series Awards and other accolades.
History.
"Ragged Isle" was created by the husband-and-wife team of Barry Dodd and Karen L. Dodd as a project for their production company, The Entertainment Experiment. The story was conceived by Greg Tulonen, Barry Dodd, Karen L. Dodd, Rick Dalton, and Jacob Lear, with episodes directed by Barry Dodd. It was shot in the summers of 2010 and 2011, entirely on location in Maine, featuring an all-Maine cast and crew.
The project's origins date back to 2007, when the Dodds collaborated with a group of University of Southern Maine actors to enter the College Soap Opera Contest, sponsored by SOAPnet. Their entry, "Criehaven," a melodrama set on a mysterious Maine island, placed in the top five in the nation. Three years later, the couple would revisit the concept for a new project, now called "Ragged Isle."
The Dodds are fans of Dark Shadows, hence some similarities and references to the '60s gothic soap opera.
Premise.
Young journalism school graduate Vicki Burke has just landed a job at a newspaper on the quiet Maine island of Ragged Isle. She is soon caught up in a mystery involving several deaths by drowning, though the victims' bodies are discovered nowhere near the water, their clothes completely dry. The solution to the puzzle may uncover secrets that have been kept on the island for generations.
Production.
Season one of "Ragged Isle" (10 episodes out of a planned 22) was written by Greg Tulonen, Barry Dodd, Karen L. Dodd, Rick Dalton, and Jacob Lear, and was shot at various Maine locations during the summer of 2010. The first episode premiered online on March 9, 2011, with new episodes released each week until the season finale aired on May 11, 2011.
On February 1, 2012, the first season relaunched on the entertainment network web site The SFN, home of other notable web series, including California Heaven, River Ridge, and AIDAN 5, among others.
Scripts for seasons two and three (six episodes each) were written by Greg Tulonen, based on a story by Greg Tulonen, Barry Dodd, Karen L. Dodd, Rick Dalton, and Jacob Lear. Both seasons were shot in the summer of 2011.
Season two premiered May 29, 2012 on raggedisle.com, with new episodes released every other week.
The world premiere of its third and final season screened at the Raindance Film Festival Web Fest in London in September 2013 and debuted online on October 31, 2013.
The twenty-second episode (and series finale) debuted at the Alamo Theatre in Bucksport, Maine on October 18, 2014, as part of the 2014 Ghostport Festival. The finale made its online debut on October 31, 2014.
Setting.
Ragged Isle is small island lobstering community that lies 21 miles off the coast of Maine. It is a highly fictionalized version of the real-life Maine island of Criehaven.
Soundtrack.
The Ragged Isle soundtrack features exclusively Maine-based musicians and bands. In the second season, musician Richard de Costa, who had contributed songs in season one, composed an original score for four of the six individual episodes. He returned to score every episode of season three. The first two seasons' soundtracks are available for purchase on the online music store Bandcamp, courtesy of Deporter Records, as is Richard deCosta's stand-alone score album, courtesy of Richard deCosta.
Awards.
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References.
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