BRUNSWICK, Maine — When Teagan Wright was a senior at Brunswick High School, he switched places for four days with a girl from across the country for an episode of the television reality show “Switched!” so each could learn how the other teen lived.
More than a decade later, after years working in television in Los Angeles and New York City, Wright is back home, excited to produce his own TV series about his favorite topic: his home state of Maine, its industries, lifestyles and people.
His enthusiasm is apparently contagious, judging by the $36,452 Wright had raised as of Friday through a Kickstarter.com fundraising campaign.
“In my head it seemed like a $1 million idea, about Maine tradespeople and lifestyles,” Wright said Friday. “It was something I was really interested in, no fodder, no BS like reality TV shows with their fake drama. I’ve done plenty of reality shows which are the absolute antithesis of this series. But the thing I didn’t expect, or, to be completely honest, that I was a nervous … wreck about is that people would share that interest with me. … I just asked people for $35,000 to make this series, and it’s very public. … If I falter, if I faceplant on this, Mama Mia, it’s going to be awful.”
Deep into pre-production, Wright’s six-episode (for now) series, “ From Away,” will begin filming any day, he said Friday.
Each of the six 30-minute episodes will focus on the life of someone working in a Maine industry, including sustainable/organic farming, commercial fishing, the craft beer movement, logging, hunting and conservation or preservation of wildlife.
Some, like fishing, Wright knows about — he worked as a sternman on a lobster boat during high school. And he’s learning about hunting, and is excited about “going in deep” to hunt bear with a Registered Maine Guide.
But some, like farming, he’ll have to learn about in order to accurately portray it for viewers.
“This series allows me to share that knowledge with others while providing an intimate hometown perspective on the entire state, to showcase basically why Maine is just better than where you’re from,” Wright wrote on his Kickstarter page. “Did I say better? Is that offensive? By better I mean different. But by different I really mean better.”
Wright said he’s being careful not to focus too much on any one part of Maine, so that people “from away” get a true sense of the state.
Wright grew up in Brunswick and graduated from Brunswick High School in 2003. Soon after, he headed to Los Angeles to work as a production assistant on “Switched!” The experience launched his career, which so far has included behind-the-scenes work, hosting a syndicated do-it-yourself show and acting in national commercials for HP and Ben & Jerry’s.
Wright now flies back and forth between New York City, Los Angeles and Maine — although he’s in Maine, preferably at his camp in West Gardiner, “as much as absolutely possible,” he said.
Wright has snagged several sponsors for different episodes, including Wolfe’s Neck Farm for the farming episode and Shipyard to sponsor the craft beer episode, and he said that despite that funding, sponsors have no creative input over the content of the shows.
He hopes to begin filming late this month, and to initially release the episodes in 2017 on an online streaming platform such as YouTube or Vimeo. He also has contacted Netflix and Hulu, and hopes they’ll be interested.
Wright is still searching for Mainers to feature in different episodes, even if only in minor parts, and encourages anyone interested to email him at wright.teagan@gmail.com.
And despite a background in reality TV, Wright said he’s determined that nothing in his series will be “fake,” and will instead offer an “information-driven documentary about Maine.”
“Being in TV production for many years, reality shows fake things constantly,” he said. “It’s always staged. Most people understand when they watch reality TV that it’s not real, but I don’t think people know the extent to which it’s faked. Whenever you see a show that has any drama, that’s all storyboard.”
Wright said that similar to series such as “Planet Earth,” Maine’s self-sustainable people “have more character and more entertainment value and information to be learned. There is no drama — you’re just seeing life unfold, the beauty is in the story and the characters.”