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Meerkat Manor: The Story Begins

Meerkat Manor: The Story Begins is a 2008 television film created by Discovery Films and Oxford Scientific Films as a prequel to the Animal Planet series Meerkat Manor. A scripted documentary narrated by Whoopi Goldberg, the film details the life of a meerkat named Flower from birth to her becoming the leader of a meerkat group called the Whiskers. The film is based on the research notes of the Kalahari Meerkat Project and primarily uses wild meerkat "actors" to represent those in the story. Shot over two years at the Kuruman River Reserve in Northern Cape, South Africa, the film employed a much larger crew than the series. Some scenes were shot at a wildlife park in the United Kingdom, while others were created using camera tricks and trained film animals.

Meerkat Manor: The Story Begins
DVD cover with the film title at a white scripted font at the top, followed in the center by an image of an adult female meerkat sitting upright and a young meerkat peeking out from around her chest with its head and neck visible and one paw draped over the female's paw. At the bottom a blue banner notes the film is narrated by Whoopi Goldberg.
Region 1 DVD cover
Written byCaroline Hawkins
Directed byChris Barker
Mike Slee
Narrated byWhoopi Goldberg
Music byLaurent Ferlet
Country of originUnited States
Original languageEnglish
Production
ProducersCaroline Hawkins
Clare Birks
Carole Tomko
Mick Kaczorowski
Mark Wild
CinematographyRobin Smith
John Walters
EditorOral Norrie Ottey
Running time75 minutes
Production companiesDiscovery Films
Oxford Scientific Films
Animal Planet
Original release
NetworkAnimal Planet
ReleaseMay 25, 2008 (2008-05-25)

The 75-minute film premiered at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival before its television premiere on Animal Planet on May 25, 2008. While it was praised for its cinematography, for maintaining the depth of coverage of the television series, and for its accessibility to newcomers to the series, it was criticized for not offering anything new to fans. The Kalahari Meerkat Project noted that the film was not completely accurate but praised it overall and recommended against analyzing it. Several reviewers praised Goldberg's narration, but the script was criticized as being too simplistic for adult viewers.

Synopsis

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The meerkat Flower is born in the Kalahari Desert on March 15, 2000, to Holly, the leader of a meerkat group called the Whiskers. After an attack by a rival group, the Lazuli, the Whiskers are forced to surrender their territory and move to a new home.

A hawk kills Holly when Flower is a year old, and her father abandons the group to find a new mate. Flower's sister Viale becomes the group's matriarch and chooses Youssarian, a roving male from the Lazuli, as her mate. Flower mates with Yossarian's brother, Zaphod, but Viale kills the resulting pups and banishes Flower from the group, allowing her to return later.

During a time of starvation and drought, Viale attempts to lead the group across a road to forage. As she crosses, she is struck and killed by a passing truck. As the Whiskers attempt to adjust to the loss of their leader, a snake approaches the group. Flower steps in to lead an attack to drive it off. In doing so, she becomes the new leader of the group. Zaphod returns to the group to be her mate, while Yossarian steps aside and leaves the group. Flower leads the Whiskers back to their original home, and after a brief battle, the Whiskers reclaim it from the Lazuli. At end of the film, an on-screen note describes Flower's death during the third season of Meerkat Manor and the children she left behind.

Production

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Created by Oxford Scientific Films for Discovery Films, Meerkat Manor: The Story Begins is a prequel biography of Flower, the central meerkat of the highly rated documentary series Meerkat Manor.[1][2][3] Caroline Hawkins, creator of the series, wrote the script using notes taken by Kalahari Meerkat Project researchers, including head researcher Tim Clutton-Brock. Hawkins notes that Oxford Scientific Films believes the film is the first natural history prequel to be created.[4] The film was directed by Chris Barker and Mike Slee, while Whoopi Goldberg, a known Meerkat Manor fan, provided the narration.[3][5][6]

"The television series was specifically shot very low and intimate so you have a one-on-one relationship with the meerkats. We put you in their world immediately and you spend almost all your time at their eye level. But we knew to make a feature film we needed something bigger. We had to bring in bigger toys to expand it. We wanted to give everybody a sense of how big the Kalahari is."

 —Mick Kaczorowski, Senior Executive Producer[3]

Meerkat Manor normally films episodes using a crew of only two or three people to avoid disturbing the meerkats; the film was shot over two years at the Kuruman River Reserve, where the Kalahari Meerkat Project that the meerkats are a part of is based, and employed a much larger crew.[2][4][7] Breaking from the series' pure documentary format, the film does not include footage of the project meerkats depicted in the story. Instead, wild meerkat "actors" represented Flower and her family; Flower was depicted by approximately eight female meerkats. The camera crew sought out appropriately aged meerkats for each scene, then filmed them until they behaved in ways the script required.[3][8][9]

While the majority of the meerkats filmed were partially habituated, the cinematographers had to move carefully to avoid scaring the animals. The crew used radios to keep in contact with one another as they followed the meerkat groups around. Although the park normally prohibits low-flying aircraft, the production crew was given permission to film for three days using a low-flying helicopter. Mounted to its front underside was a new type of camera that was not affected by the shaking of the helicopter.[4] Colour scenes depicting the birth of meerkat pups were obtained by filming captive meerkats at the Cotswold Wildlife Park in the United Kingdom.[2]

Because of the viewer backlash Animal Planet received for allowing meerkats from the Meerkat Manor series to die, the producers of the film debated including the filmed death of a young meerkat who was bitten by a snake. They questioned whether viewers would understand that the meerkats were wild animals and that human interference would disrupt the animals' natural life cycles.[4] In addition, to avoid disrupting the research, crews are only allowed to film within the research area under a strictly enforced agreement not to interfere with the meerkats' lives.[10] The producers ultimately included the scene, but the meerkat's cries for help as it lay dying were edited out. Other meerkat deaths depicted were reenactments.[2][4] For Viale's death scene, the crew rigged a camera mounted on a platform on the side of a truck. Robin Smith, the film and series main cinematographer, hung partially out of the truck to hold the camera steady, giving the visual impression of a truck bearing down on a meerkat.[4] To provide bird and snake footage, professional handlers were employed, ensuring the meerkats were not deliberately put in danger.[2][4]

In 2007, the real Flower was killed by a snake bite—before the film and the third series of Meerkat Manor had finished shooting.[9][11][12] According to Executive producer Mick Kaczorowski, Flower's death imposed the need for a "bigger" ending to the film than the producers originally planned; Flower's death was addressed and the coda added.[9]

Distribution

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The film premiered at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival on 30 April in the Spotlight section,[5][13][14] before airing in the United States on Animal Planet on May 25. Its television premiere was followed by the 30-minute Making of Meerkat Manor: The Story Begins special.[15] The film was screened at the 2008 Festival du film britannique de Dinard in France, as The Meerkats, and at the Wildscreen Festival in Bristol on October 18 and 24, 2008.[16][17]

It was released to Region 1 DVD in North America on 3 June 2008, with the Making of ... special included as an extra. The DVD also includes another special, The Science of Meerkat Manor, giving viewers a look at how the Kalahari Meerkat Project researchers work with the meerkats.[18] It is scheduled for Region 2 DVD release in the United Kingdom on November 2, 2009.[19]

Reception

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In 2009, the film was nominated by the Cinema Audio Society for an award in the "Outstanding Achievement in Sound Mixing for DVD Original Programming" category, losing out to the music documentary If All Goes Wrong.[20][21] Variety's Ronnie Scheib did not think that Meerkat Manor: The Story Begins offered anything new for viewers of the television series, feeling that it was a "re-edited, re-scored, re-narrated" version of the existing series.[14] While he found Goldberg's narration to be higher quality than in most documentaries of this type, he also felt that it "pales after a while."[14] Scheib praised the film for its cinematography and the depth and quality of coverage of the meerkats, and said their activities "constantly amaze", while noting that the film was a condensed and embellished version of actual events that did not distort the meerkats' story.[14] The Friends of the Kalahari Meerkat Project, a sponsorship for the research group studying the meerkats, thought the film was a "heart-touching tribute to Flower, with amazing meerkat, landscape and wildlife footage". Though the group noted that the film changes some details from the life history reports it was based on, they felt the film should be enjoyed rather than analyzed.[2] Common Sense Media reviewer Emily Ashby felt the film was accessible to fans and newcomers to the series; she praised the story's scope and emotional impact, calling it a "captivating journey" that did not avoid depicting the "harsh facts of life in the wild".[22]

References

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  1. ^ Thomson, Desson (July 29, 2007). "March of the Cuddly-Wuddly Documentaries". The Washington Post. Retrieved July 29, 2007.
  2. ^ a b c d e f "Meerkat Manor: The Story begins". Friends of the Kalahari Meerkat Project. May 8, 2008. Retrieved June 27, 2008.
  3. ^ a b c d Owen, Rob (May 25, 2008). "TV Week: A tribute to Flower Back to 'Meerkat Manor'". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Retrieved July 31, 2009.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g Barker, Chris (Director), Slee, Mike (Director), Goldberg, Whoopi (Narrator), Hawkins, Caroline (Producer) (May 25, 2008). Making of Meerkat Manor: The Story Begins (Television special). Animal Planet.
  5. ^ a b "Spotlight, Showcase, Restored/Redisccovered, and Five Special Events" (Press release). Tribeca Film Festival. March 17, 2008. Retrieved February 3, 2009.
  6. ^ "Mega Meerkat Fan Collection". Discovery Channel. Archived from the original on July 25, 2009. Retrieved August 13, 2009.
  7. ^ Brown, John (June 3, 2006). "Filming Meerkat Manor". The International Association of Wildlife Film-Makers. Retrieved December 10, 2007.
  8. ^ McCandless, Sarah Grace (May 22, 2008). "Get Ready for More Desert Drama (Official Discovery Blogs interview)". Kalahari Confidential. Discovery Channel. Archived from the original on May 25, 2008. Retrieved May 25, 2008.
  9. ^ a b c Owen, Rob (May 23, 2008). "Life on 'Meerkat Manor' goes on after Flower with film, new season". Chicago Sun-Times. p. 42.
  10. ^ "KMP Meerkats FAQ". Kalahari Meerkat Project. August 7, 2008. Retrieved July 31, 2009.
  11. ^ Kaczorowski, Mick (October 17, 2007). "The Meerkats, a transcript of the online October 17, 2007 chat session with Mick Kaczorowski". Washington Post. Retrieved December 20, 2007.
  12. ^ "Journey's End". Meerkat Manor. Series 3. Episode 3.8.
  13. ^ Terranova, Genna. "Meerkat Manor: The Story Begins". Tribeca Film Festival. Archived from the original on July 17, 2011. Retrieved February 3, 2009.
  14. ^ a b c d Scheib, Ronnie (May 19, 2009). "Meerkat Manor: The Story Begins". Variety. Retrieved May 20, 2008.
  15. ^ "Meerkat Manor: The Next Generation Claws Back to Animal Planet Friday, June 6, at 9 PM" (Press release). Animal Planet. April 21, 2008. Archived from the original on September 15, 2012. Retrieved February 3, 2009.
  16. ^ Julé, Vincent (October 7, 2008). "Festival du Film Britannique de Dinard 2008 – Avant-Premières" [Festival of British Film of Dinard 2008 – Before-Premieres] (in French). Ecranlarge.com. Retrieved July 31, 2009.
  17. ^ "Wildscreenings: Meerkat Manor: The Story Begins". Watershed. Archived from the original on July 20, 2011. Retrieved October 13, 2008.
  18. ^ "Meerkat Manor: The Story Begins (2008)". Amazon. Retrieved May 25, 2008.
  19. ^ "Meerkat Manor [DVD]". Amazon UK. Retrieved October 15, 2009.
  20. ^ Kilday, Gregg (January 7, 2009). "'Knight' scores in CAS noms". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved February 3, 2009.
  21. ^ "The Nominees for the Cinema Audio Society Awards for Outstanding Achievement in Sound Mixing for 2008". Cinema Audio Society. Archived from the original on June 28, 2009. Retrieved August 5, 2009.
  22. ^ Ashby, Emily (July 4, 2008). "Meerkat Manor: The Story Begins". Common Sense Media. Retrieved June 27, 2009.
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