australian television information archive

The Music of Medivac

Genevieve Picot, who has voiced irritation at being considered old when her skills are so much better than they were 10 years ago, has the authority of a senior hospital doctor in Medivac. But at 39, she feels this may be her last leading role.

"I wonder at what age a woman is suddenly called an older woman? It's not even a question for men. They're not called older until they're past 50, but for women it's about past 35.

"I must confess that... I saw this as the last opportunity in my career for a lead role on television because I'll be too old for it soon. The work around is about 70 per cent men and 30 per cent women, unless they're straightforward soap-style stories. And within that 70 per cent, there's only a small percentage that are leads."

There is no question that things are changing, Picot says, but slowly. She is thrilled to bits that Wendy Hughes has got State Coroner. "They've put her in the over-40 mark whereas once upon a time they would have said: 'Oh no, she has to be in her early-30s. She can be a younger state coroner.' They would have got nervous about doing that."

"Life begins at 40" - Dec 1996 article by Leith Youn

Tony Cavanaugh: Adrenalin Junkies, which is called Medivac in Australia, which is a good example of how a show was financed, was considered to be a high quality show which was shot on film as opposed to video, which is a lot cheaper. The network will put up a licence fee for your show. If you shoot it on video the licence fee may well cover pretty much all of your budget. Maybe you'll need a little extra, but you're getting close to 100%. If you're shooting on film, you're not getting closer to 100%, you've got around 50%, maybe a little more if you like, depending on your budget, and how you structure the production of your show.

You then need to make up the shortfall from - there are only so many places you can go - overseas, other broadcasters, which takes you into co-production territory, so you're working to two or three different masters, or a distributor, like Beyond, who we have a relationship with, who will give you an advance against sales. Adrenalin Junkies was unbelievably successful; it got a phenomenal German sale. We actually made up our shortfall just from that one German sale. But nowadays if we were making a show like that, we wouldn't be as reliant, we wouldn't expect that same level of income or investment from overseas. There would be great pressures on you to be making it on video, and the video technology is getting better, but it's still perceived to be of less quality than film. But there are those pressures on all producers to get the budgets down.

http://www.abc.net.au:80/rn/talks/bbing/stories/s43425.htm

The telemovie, The Territorians, the CTPF-funded telemovie Adrenalin Junkies (broadcast as the first two episodes of the Medivac series), the telemovie Whipping Boy and the first six episodes of Twisted Tales, all won the ratings in Sydney while coming either first or second in Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth and Brisbane. The total audience in these five capital cities was estimated to be 1.5 million for The Territorians, 1.4 million for Adrenalin Junkies, 1.2 million for Whipping Boy and an average of 1.1 million for each episode of Twisted Tales.

The Age, Melbourne

http://www.afc.gov.au:80/about/corpora/annrep/ar96_97/ar_56.html

"This was the third and final year of the Commercial Television Production Fund which funded a total of 36 new television programs. Four projects were successful in generating subsequent series of one-hour episodes: Medivac, State Coroner, Good Guys Bad Guys and Murder Call. Programs supported by the Fund will be screened in future years as they are completed"

http://www.afc.gov.au:80/about/corpora/annrep/ar97_98/ar_3.html

"True, the Ten Network has its collection of misfits, too. Big Sky and Medivac are not exactly in the class of another Ten offering, NYPD Blue but with many countries putting up money for these two turkeys, they were able to forge ahead and authorise additional series to be shot. Why not? The series flunked in their homeland, but are reaping big dollars in the hungry overseas markets. Another lesson learned and the ringing of CanWest cash registers play the happy tune of success."

http://www.sofcom.com.au:80/TV/mag/news/AustralianNews/TheTenNetworkSuccessStory.html

"Three of the adult telemovies financed by the CTPF were successful in generating subsequent series of one-hour episodes: State Coroner, Adrenalin Junkies (aka Medivac) and Good Guys Bad Guys. These series have been commissioned by the networks as quota programming and will be financed from private sources with the networks' initial combined commitment of $9 m being supplemented by pre-sales to overseas territories."

http://www.afc.gov.au:80/about/corpora/annrep/ar95_96/resource.html

Projects funded by the Panel which have screened include Twisted Tales, The Territorians, Whipping Boy and the telemovie launch of Medivac. New projects soon to be seen include Good Guys, Bad Guys with Marcus Graham, State Coroner with Wendy Hughes, Kangaroo Palace with Jackie McKenzie and Rebecca Gibney, The Last Of The Ryans with Richard Roxburgh and Fable with Simon Westaway.

http://www.afc.gov.au:80/news/media/medrel/7bFeb97.html

Bethlehem West Floorplan

This floorplan of the Bethlehem West ER is basically correct as far as the location of the major rooms are concerned but aspects associated with the lesser seen areas are probably not exact. The map is not to scale and the relative room sizes may not be exact.

Note: The window on the back wall of the locker room was not in place until approximately episode 17.

Address and phone numbers for the fictional hospital

Bethlehem West Hospital
320 Adelaide Street
Brisbane 4000
Ph: (07) 3221 3935
Fax: (07) 3221 3675

Tidbits"

Marina's last name was originally supposed to be Copeland, and was later changed to Zamoyski.