Mayday (TV series)

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Mayday
Mayday.png
Also known as 'Air Crash Investigation(s)
Air Emergency
(National Geographic Channel)
 Air Disasters
(Smithsonian Channel)
Genre Documentary
Docudrama
Created by André Barro
Narrated by Stephen Bogaert for Canada and the US
Bill Ratner for the US (Smithsonian Channel)
Jonathan Aris for Australia, Asia and Europe
Country of origin Canada
Original language(s) English
No. of seasons 16
No. of episodes 140 (120 aired) (list of episodes)
Production
Running time 45–90 minutes
Production company(s) Cineflix Productions
Release
Original network Discovery Channel Canada
National Geographic Channel
Original release 3 September 2003 –
present
External links
[{{#property:P856}} Website]
Production website

Mayday, also known as Air Crash Investigation(s) in Australia, South Africa, United Kingdom, Asia and some European countries, and Air Emergency and Air Disasters in the United States, is a Canadian documentary television program produced by Cineflix investigating air crashes, near-crashes, hijackings, bombings and other disasters. Mayday uses re-enactments and computer-generated imagery to reconstruct for its audiences the sequence of events leading up to each disaster. In addition, aviation experts, retired pilots and crash investigators are interviewed explaining how these emergencies came about, how they were investigated and how they could have been prevented.

Cineflix started production on 13 August 2002 (2002-08-13), with a CDN$2.5 million budget. Cineflix secured deals with France 5, the Discovery Channel, Canal D, TVNZ, the Seven Network, the Holland Media Group and the National Geographic Channel, to take Mayday to 144 countries and 26 languages. The series was received well by critics and nominated for a number of awards. Sharon Zupancic won a Gemini Award for her work on the Mayday episode, "Lockerbie Disaster". A UNSW senior lecturer, Raymond Lewis, conducted a study on teaching strategy loosely based on the series. Lewis's results indicated using the strategy had "a positive effect on learning outcomes."

Hallmarks

The series features re-enactments, interviews, eyewitness testimony, computer-generated imagery, and in nearly all of the episodes, cockpit voice recordings to reconstruct the sequence of events to the audiences. Several passengers and crew members (whether they survived the incident or not) are picked and actors/actresses play the role of those passengers and crews throughout the flight usually starting from boarding of the flight. The flight routines in the air traffic control, cockpit and cabin are recreated on screen starting from departure up to the moment of the emergency. At the moment of the emergency, external view of the aircraft from different angles are recreated to show the effect and what had happened to the aircraft. The responses and reactions of the passengers, crews and air traffic control leading up to the eventual crash or emergency landing are then recreated. All the scenes in cockpit and air traffic control centres are recreated using the actual script obtained from the cockpit voice recorder of the aircraft and other recordings made at the time.

Throughout the episodes the victims or relatives and friends of victims are interviewed.[1][2] In addition aviation experts, retired pilots and investigators are interviewed on the evidence and explain how these emergencies came about and how they could have been prevented.[2]

Production and distribution

Cineflix started production for Mayday on 13 August 2002 (2002-08-13), with a CDN$2.5 million budget, after Channel Five commissioned the six-part one-hour series.[3] To keep the costs down most of the production was kept at Cineflix's Toronto offices in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.[4] While in production the series was sold to France 5, Discovery Channel and Canal D.[5] On 2 June 2003 (2003-06-02), Cineflix announced that they sold the series to TVNZ, the Seven Network and the Holland Media Group,[5] later on 22 October 2003 (2003-10-22), a month before the airing of the first season, Cineflix announced that they secured a major international deal with National Geographic Channel to take Mayday to 144 countries and 26 languages.[6]

In 2011, Smithsonian Networks aired Season 5, making it the first time in the USA that Mayday had aired other than on National Geographic, the show was renamed to Air Disasters. On 25 January 2012, Cineflix Rights announced that they would be selling Seasons 8, 9 and 11 (23 episodes) to Smithsonian Networks.[7] On 28 March 2014, Cineflix Rights announced a deal between Smithsonian Network to air seasons 3, 4 and 13 (34 episodes).[8]

Episodes

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Main article: List of Mayday episodes

As of 24 February 2015, a total of 120 episodes of Mayday have aired, including five "Science of Disaster" specials and three "Crash Scene Investigation" spin-offs. A 15th season has been announced and will contain 10 episodes. Production began on 8 December 2014 and ended 12 July 2015.

Season Episodes Originally aired DVD release dates
Season premiere Season finale Region 1 Region 2 Region 4
1 6 3 September 2003 (2003-09-03)[9] 22 October 2003 (2003-10-22)[9] 9 April 2009 (2009-04-09)[10] TBA 7 March 2013 (2013-03-07)[11]
2 6 23 January 2005 (2005-01-23)[12] 27 February 2005 (2005-02-27) TBA TBA 7 March 2013 (2013-03-07)[11]
3 13 14 September 2005 (2005-09-14)[13] 7 December 2005 (2005-12-07)[13] 15 May 2012 (2012-05-15)[14] TBA 7 March 2013 (2013-03-07)[11]
4 10 15 April 2007 (2007-04-15)[15] 17 June 2007 (2007-06-17)[13] 15 May 2012 (2012-05-15)[14] 5 October 2015 (2015-10-05)[16] 7 March 2013 (2013-03-07)[11]
5 10 16 April 2007 (2007-04-16)[13] 2 March 2008 (2008-03-02)[13] TBA 5 October 2015 (2015-10-05)[16] 7 March 2013 (2013-03-07)[11]
6 3 9 April 2008 (2008-04-09)[13] 11 June 2008 (2008-06-11)[13] TBA TBA 7 March 2013 (2013-03-07)[11]
7 8 4 November 2009 (2009-11-04)[17] 17 December 2009 (2009-12-17) TBA TBA 6 May 2010 (2010-05-06)[18]
8 2 10 June 2009 (2009-06-10)[19] 17 June 2009 (2009-06-17)[19] TBA TBA 7 March 2013 (2013-03-07)[11]
9 8 8 September 2010 (2010-09-08)[20] 27 October 2010 (2010-10-27) TBA TBA 7 March 2013 (2013-03-07)[11]
10 6 27 February 2011 (2011-02-27) 28 March 2011 (2011-03-28)[21] TBA TBA 7 March 2013 (2013-03-07)[11]
11 13 12 August 2011 (2011-08-12) 13 April 2012 (2012-04-13) TBA TBA 5 September 2012 (2012-09-05)[22]
12 13 3 August 2012 (2012-08-03) 15 April 2013 (2013-04-15) TBA TBA 14 August 2013 (2013-08-14)[23]
13 11 16 December 2013 (2013-12-16) 9 May 2014 (2014-05-09) TBA TBA 2 December 2015 (2015-12-02)[24]
14 11 5 January 2015 (2015-01-05)[25] 15 February 2015 (2015-02-15) TBA TBA TBA
15 10[26] 4 January 2016 (2016-01-04)[27] TBA TBA TBA TBA

Reception

The series has been received well by critics.[1][2] Paul Mavis from DVD Talk recommends Mayday as "Harrowing and surprisingly emotional" and continues with "Never exploitative, [Mayday] not only ratchets up the suspense with its well-done action scenes, it validates them by showing us the human side of these horrific air disasters."[1] Franck Tabouring from DVD Verdict said "It's a well-produced show with plenty of compelling information about tragic accidents, telling how some people survived and others didn't."[2]

University of New South Wales's senior lecturer, Raymond Lewis, conducted a study on teaching strategy loosely based on the series. The study was done with prospective pilots studying the "Aircraft Systems for Aviators" undergraduate course by including "study of air accidents and incidents associated with aircraft systems". The results of the study showed "the use of air accidents and incident scenarios had a positive effect on learning outcomes."[28]

Awards and nominations

Overall, the series was nominated for nine awards. It won two, both for film editing.

Year Nominated work Recipient(s) Category Result
Canadian Society of Cinematographers
2004 "Flying Blind" Michael Boland Best Cinematography in Docudrama Nominated
2008 "Final Approach" Damir I Chytil Nominated
"Gimli Glider" D. Gregor Hagey Nominated
2009 "Air India: Explosive Evidence" Paul Tolton Nominated
"Fatal Distraction" D. Gregor Hagey Nominated
Gemini Awards
2009 Mayday: Season 5 Simon Lloyd • Larry Bambrick • Katherine Buck • Alex Bystram •
Greg Lanning • Samantha Linton •
Glen Salzman • John Vandervelde		 Best General/Human Interest Series Nominated
2010 "Lockerbie Disaster" Sharon Zupancic Best Picture Editing in a Documentary Program or Series Won
Canadian Screen Awards
2014 "Focused on Failure" Brian Eimer • Jessica Moniz •
Josh Vamos • Matt Vandersluys •
Michael Bonini • Nadia Awad		 Best Sound in an Information/ Documentary or Lifestyle Program or Series Nominated
2015 "Into the Eye of the Storm" Dan Hawkes Best Picture Editing in a Factual Program or Series Won

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  3. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  4. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  6. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  7. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  8. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  10. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 11.3 11.4 11.5 11.6 11.7 11.8 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  12. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 13.2 13.3 13.4 13.5 13.6 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  15. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; name "Zavvi.com" defined multiple times with different content
  17. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  18. ↑ http://www.sanity.com.au/products/2144867/Air_Crash_Investigation_S7
  19. ↑ 19.0 19.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  20. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  21. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  22. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  23. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  24. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  25. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  26. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  27. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  28. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.

External links

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