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Meerkat Manor: The Story Begins
Directed by	Chris Barker Mike Slee
Produced by	Caroline Hawkins Clare Birks Carole Tomko Mick Kaczorowski Mark Wild
Written by	Caroline Hawkins
Narrated by	Whoopi Goldberg
Music by	Laurent Ferlet
Cinematography	Robin Smith John Walters
Editing by	Oral Norrie Ottey
Distributed by	The Weinstein Company
Release date(s)	April 25, 2008 (Tribeca Film Festival) May 25, 2008 (television premiere)
Running time	75 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Official website
IMDb profile

Meerkat Manor: The Story Begins is a television film created by Animal Planet and Oxford Scientific Films as a prequel to the hit Animal Planet series Meerkat Manor. It documents the late Whisker's matriarch Flower's early life from birth through her assumption of leadership of the Whiskers group. Narrated by Whoopi Goldberg, the seventy-five minute film first premiered at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival before its May 25, 2008 television premiere on Animal Planet.

Unlike the original series, the film uses unknown and untrained meerkats to play the roles of the Whiskers and Lazuli groups, with a new musical score and a greater range of cinematographic technique's are employed.

1 Synopsis
2 Production
3 Distribution
4 Reception
5 References
6 External links

[edit] Synopsis

See also: List of Meerkat Manor meerkats

Flower is born in the Kalahari Desert on March 15, 2000 to the leader of a meerkat group called the Whiskers. During an attack by a rival group, the Lazuli, the Whiskers are forced to surrender their territory and move to a new home. Flower's mother Holly is killed by a Hawk while 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 the Lazuli roving male Yossarian as her mate. Flower mates with his brother, Zaphod, but Viale kills the resulting pups and temporarily banishes Flower from the group. During a time of starvation and drought, Viale attempts to lead the group across a road to find new food, but she is stuck by a car and killed. As the Whiskers attempt to adjust to the lose, a snake approaches the group. Flower steps in to lead the 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, reclaim it from the Lazuli group. At end of the film, a note regarding Flower's deathin the third season of Meerkat Manor and the children she left behind is included.

[edit] Production

Created by Oxford Scientific Films for Discovery Films, Meerkat Manor: The Story Begins is a prequel to the Meerkat Manor series.^[1] The film includes narration by known Meerkat Manor fan, Whoopi Goldberg, and is directed by Chris Barker and Mike Slee.^[2] Unlike with the Meerkat Manor series, the film does not actually feature any of the real meerkats being depicted in the film. Untrained "meerkats actors" play the role of Flower and her family, with the camera crew searching out appropriately aged meerkats, then following them until the meerkats acted in a way that was needed for the film. Flower herself is depicted by approximately eight female meerkats.^[3]^[4]

The film's script was written by Caroline Hawkins, based on the notes taken by Tim Clutton-Brock and the Kalahari Meerkat Project researchers. It is believed to be the first natural history prequel to be created. The Meerkat Manor has a small film crew, usually only two or three people, while the film used a feature film crew. While the meerkats filmed were partially habituated, the cinematographers had to be more careful in their movements to avoid scaring the animals away. The crew used radios to keep in contact with on another as the followed various meerkat groups around attempting to capture certain behaviors. Though the park normally has flight restrictions, prohibiting low flying aircraft, the production crew was able to get permission to use a helicopter for low-filming flights for three days. A new kind of camera was mounted to the front underside of the helicopter that was capable of filming without being affected by the shaking of the vehicle.^[5]

With the backlash Animal Planet received for allowing the meerkats to die from snakebites, the producers 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 so they could not interfer. In the end, the scene was included, though the baby meerkat's cries for help as it lay dying were edited out. For the scene where Flower's sister is killed by a truck, the crew rigged a camera mounted on a platform on the side of a truck. With the first run, the camera bounced around too much, so Robin Smith, the main cinematographer, rode hanging partially out of the truck to hold on to the camera and hold it steady.^[5]

Executive producer Mick Kaczorowski notes that due to Flower's death before the film was finished, the ending of the film needed to be "bigger" than originally planned, with Flower's death addressed at the end.^[4]

[edit] Distribution

The film first premiered at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival in the Spotlight section,^[2], before airing in the United States on Animal Planet on May 25, 2008. Its initial television airing was followed by a thirty-minute Making of Meerkat Manor: The Story Begins special.^[6] Although the original Meerkat Manor series premiered in the United Kingdom on Animal Planet International, no air date for Meerkat Manor: The Story Begins has been announced.

It is scheduled to be released to Region 1 DVD on June 3, 2008.^[7]

[edit] Reception

A Variety magazine reviewer noted that the film while the film had nothing new versus the television series, it praised the lack of commercials and continued extraordinary cinematography the series is well known for. Goldberg's narration was noted to be of better quality than most documentaries, and the film stars were considered to be "addictively adorable animals".^[8]