Meerkat Manor: The Story Begins
Encyclopedia
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.
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.
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 Yossarian, 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.
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
. 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. The film was directed by Chris Barker and Mike Slee
, while Whoopi Goldberg
, a known Meerkat Manor fan, provided the narration.
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. 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.
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. Full-color scenes depicting the birth of meerkat pups were obtained by filming captive meerkats at the Cotswold Wildlife Park
in the United Kingdom.
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. 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. 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. 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. To provide bird and snake footage, professional handlers
were employed, ensuring the meerkats were not deliberately put in danger.
In 2007, the real Flower was killed by a snake bite—before the film and the third series of Meerkat Manor had finished shooting. 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.
on April 30 in the Spotlight section, 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. 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 October 24, 2008.
It was released to Region 1 DVD
in North America on June 3, 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. It is scheduled for Region 2 DVD release in the United Kingdom on November 2, 2009.
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
. 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. 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." 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 distorted the meerkats' story. 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. 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". David Lowe from The Sun
found the film to be "charming" and a "fantastic documentary [that] manages to be both educational and incredibly entertaining."
Television movie
A television film is a feature film that is a television program produced for and originally distributed by a television network, in contrast to...
created by Discovery Films
Discovery Channel
Discovery Channel is an American satellite and cable specialty channel , founded by John Hendricks and distributed by Discovery Communications. It is a publicly traded company run by CEO David Zaslav...
and Oxford Scientific Films
Oxford Scientific Films
Oxford Scientific Films is a British company that produces natural history and documentary programmes. Founded on 8 July 1968 by noted documentary filmmaker Gerald Thompson, the independent film company broke new ground in the world of documentaries, using new filming techniques and capturing...
as a prequel
Prequel
A prequel is a work that supplements a previously completed one, and has an earlier time setting.The widely recognized term was a 20th-century neologism, and a portmanteau from pre- and sequel...
to the Animal Planet
Animal Planet
Animal Planet is an American cable tv specialty channel that launched on October 1, 1996. It is distributed by Discovery Communications. A high-definition simulcast of the channel launched on September 1, 2007.-History:...
series Meerkat Manor
Meerkat Manor
Meerkat Manor is a British television programme produced by Oxford Scientific Films for Animal Planet International that premiered in September 2005 and ran for four series until its cancellation in August 2008...
. A scripted documentary narrated by Whoopi Goldberg
Whoopi Goldberg
Whoopi Goldberg is an American comedian, actress, singer-songwriter, political activist, author and talk show host.Goldberg made her film debut in The Color Purple playing Celie, a mistreated black woman in the Deep South. She received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress and won...
, the film details the life of a meerkat
Meerkat
The meerkat or suricate, Suricata suricatta, is a small mammal belonging to the mongoose family. Meerkats live in all parts of the Kalahari Desert in Botswana, in much of the Namib Desert in Namibia and southwestern Angola, and in South Africa. A group of meerkats is called a "mob", "gang" or "clan"...
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
Kalahari Meerkat Project
The Kalahari Meerkat Project, or KMP, is a long term research project focused on studying the evolutionary causes and ecological consequences of cooperative behaviors in meerkats...
and primarily uses wild meerkat "actors" to represent those in the story. Shot over two years at the Kuruman River Reserve in Northern Cape
Northern Cape
The Northern Cape is the largest and most sparsely populated province of South Africa. It was created in 1994 when the Cape Province was split up. Its capital is Kimberley. It includes the Kalahari Gemsbok National Park, part of an international park shared with Botswana...
, South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
, 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.
The 75-minute film premiered at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival
Tribeca Film Festival
The Tribeca Film Festival is a film festival founded in 2002 by Jane Rosenthal, Robert De Niro and Craig Hatkoff in a response to the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the consequent loss of vitality in the TriBeCa neighborhood in Lower Manhattan.The mission of the 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
The meerkat Flower is born in the Kalahari DesertKalahari Desert
The Kalahari Desert is a large semi-arid sandy savannah in Southern Africa extending , covering much of Botswana and parts of Namibia and South Africa, as semi-desert, with huge tracts of excellent grazing after good rains. The Kalahari supports more animals and plants than a true desert...
on March 15, 2000, to Holly, the leader of a meerkat
Meerkat
The meerkat or suricate, Suricata suricatta, is a small mammal belonging to the mongoose family. Meerkats live in all parts of the Kalahari Desert in Botswana, in much of the Namib Desert in Namibia and southwestern Angola, and in South Africa. A group of meerkats is called a "mob", "gang" or "clan"...
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 Yossarian, 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
Created by Oxford Scientific FilmsOxford Scientific Films
Oxford Scientific Films is a British company that produces natural history and documentary programmes. Founded on 8 July 1968 by noted documentary filmmaker Gerald Thompson, the independent film company broke new ground in the world of documentaries, using new filming techniques and capturing...
for Discovery Films
Discovery Channel
Discovery Channel is an American satellite and cable specialty channel , founded by John Hendricks and distributed by Discovery Communications. It is a publicly traded company run by CEO David Zaslav...
, Meerkat Manor: The Story Begins is a prequel
Prequel
A prequel is a work that supplements a previously completed one, and has an earlier time setting.The widely recognized term was a 20th-century neologism, and a portmanteau from pre- and sequel...
biography of Flower, the central meerkat
Meerkat
The meerkat or suricate, Suricata suricatta, is a small mammal belonging to the mongoose family. Meerkats live in all parts of the Kalahari Desert in Botswana, in much of the Namib Desert in Namibia and southwestern Angola, and in South Africa. A group of meerkats is called a "mob", "gang" or "clan"...
of the highly rated documentary series Meerkat Manor
Meerkat Manor
Meerkat Manor is a British television programme produced by Oxford Scientific Films for Animal Planet International that premiered in September 2005 and ran for four series until its cancellation in August 2008...
. Caroline Hawkins, creator of the series, wrote the script using notes taken by Kalahari Meerkat Project
Kalahari Meerkat Project
The Kalahari Meerkat Project, or KMP, is a long term research project focused on studying the evolutionary causes and ecological consequences of cooperative behaviors in meerkats...
researchers, including head researcher Tim Clutton-Brock
Tim Clutton-Brock
Timothy Hugh Clutton-Brock, MA PhD ScD FRS is a British zoologist known for his comparative studies of the behavioural ecology of mammals, particularly red deer and meerkats.-Career:...
. Hawkins notes that Oxford Scientific Films believes the film is the first natural history prequel to be created. The film was directed by Chris Barker and Mike Slee
Mike Slee
-Biography:Michael John Slee BA is a British television documentary producer/director, film-maker and writer....
, while Whoopi Goldberg
Whoopi Goldberg
Whoopi Goldberg is an American comedian, actress, singer-songwriter, political activist, author and talk show host.Goldberg made her film debut in The Color Purple playing Celie, a mistreated black woman in the Deep South. She received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress and won...
, a known Meerkat Manor fan, provided the narration.
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
Kalahari Meerkat Project
The Kalahari Meerkat Project, or KMP, is a long term research project focused on studying the evolutionary causes and ecological consequences of cooperative behaviors in meerkats...
that the meerkats are a part of is based, and employed a much larger crew. 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.
While the majority of the meerkats filmed were partially habituated
Habituation
Habituation can be defined as a process or as a procedure. As a process it is defined as a decrease in an elicited behavior resulting from the repeated presentation of an eliciting stimulus...
, 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. Full-color scenes depicting the birth of meerkat pups were obtained by filming captive meerkats at the Cotswold Wildlife Park
Cotswold Wildlife Park
The Cotswold Wildlife Park and Gardens exhibits mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and invertebrates from all around the world. The Park is set in of landscaped parkland and gardens in Oxfordshire, England. Around 350,000 people visited the park in 2005....
in the United Kingdom.
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. 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. 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. 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. To provide bird and snake footage, professional handlers
Wrangler (profession)
In North America, a wrangler is someone employed to handle animals professionally, especially horses, but also other types of animals. Wranglers also handle the horses and other animals during the making of motion pictures...
were employed, ensuring the meerkats were not deliberately put in danger.
In 2007, the real Flower was killed by a snake bite—before the film and the third series of Meerkat Manor had finished shooting. 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
Coda
Coda can denote any concluding event, summation, or section.Coda may also refer to:-Acronyms:* Calgary Olympic Development Association, the former name of the Canadian Winter Sport Institute, a non profit organization...
added.
Distribution
The film premiered at the 2008 Tribeca Film FestivalTribeca Film Festival
The Tribeca Film Festival is a film festival founded in 2002 by Jane Rosenthal, Robert De Niro and Craig Hatkoff in a response to the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the consequent loss of vitality in the TriBeCa neighborhood in Lower Manhattan.The mission of the festival...
on April 30 in the Spotlight section, before airing in the United States on Animal Planet
Animal Planet
Animal Planet is an American cable tv specialty channel that launched on October 1, 1996. It is distributed by Discovery Communications. A high-definition simulcast of the channel launched on September 1, 2007.-History:...
on May 25. Its television premiere was followed by the 30-minute Making of Meerkat Manor: The Story Begins special. The film was screened at the 2008 Festival du film britannique de Dinard in France, as The Meerkats, and at the Wildscreen Festival
Wildscreen Festival
The Wildscreen Festival, an initiative of The Wildscreen Trust is an international festival of film, television and digital media inspired by nature and natural places...
in Bristol
Bristol
Bristol is a city, unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England, with an estimated population of 433,100 for the unitary authority in 2009, and a surrounding Larger Urban Zone with an estimated 1,070,000 residents in 2007...
on October 18 and October 24, 2008.
It was released to Region 1 DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
in North America on June 3, 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. It is scheduled for Region 2 DVD release in the United Kingdom on November 2, 2009.
Reception
In 2009, the film was nominated by the Cinema Audio SocietyCinema Audio Society Awards
Cinema Audio Society Awards or The C.A.S. Awards is an annual awards ceremony honoring Outstanding Achievement in Sound Mixing. The awards are presented by the Cinema Audio Society and began in 1994.It hands out awards for three categories:*Feature films...
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
If All Goes Wrong
If All Goes Wrong is a feature-length documentary about The Smashing Pumpkins, which chronicles the band's residencies at The Orange Peel in Asheville and The Fillmore in San Francisco in summer 2007. It was screened, in competition, at Ghent Film Festival in October 2008...
. Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
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. 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." 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 distorted the meerkats' story. 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. 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". David Lowe from The Sun
The Sun (newspaper)
The Sun is a daily national tabloid newspaper published in the United Kingdom and owned by News Corporation. Sister editions are published in Glasgow and Dublin...
found the film to be "charming" and a "fantastic documentary [that] manages to be both educational and incredibly entertaining."