The Meerkats

Last updated

The Meerkats
The Meerkats.jpg
Promotional film poster
Directed by James Honeyborne
Written by Alexander McCall Smith
Narrated by Paul Newman
CinematographyBarrie Britton
Tony Miller
Mark Payne-Gill
Edited byJustin Krish
Music bySarah Class
Production
companies
Distributed by Momentum Pictures
Release dates
  • 15 October 2008 (2008-10-15)(France)
  • 7 August 2009 (2009-08-07)(United Kingdom)
Running time
83 minutes
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish

The Meerkats, also known as Meerkats: The Movie, is a feature-length 2008 British wildlife fiction film which anthropomorphises the daily struggles of a clan of meerkats in the Kalahari Desert. It was produced by BBC Films, and filmed by the award-winning BBC Natural History Unit. It is the debut directorial feature of James Honeyborne, previously a producer of natural history programmes for television. The worldwide premiere was held at the Dinard Film Festival, France in October 2008, [1] expanding to a wide release the following week. The film was released in 2009, on 7 August in the UK. The film was dedicated to Paul Newman, the narrator of the film, who died in 2008, shortly before this film was released making it his final film role.

Contents

Plot

The documentary follows the coming-of-age of a meerkat named Kolo who is forced to leave his home by a group of meerkats who want more territory. Lost in the African savannah, he tries to reunite with his family, but encounters large, fierce, and deadly creatures.

Production

The Meerkats was announced in November 2006 as BBC Films and The Weinstein Company agreed a co-financing deal for the film, with The Weinstein Company also handling international distribution. The year-long principal photography began on location in the Kalahari Desert, South Africa in the same month. [2] It became the Natural History Unit's first feature-length wildlife fiction based on original material, and followed the successes of Earth (2007) and Deep Blue (2003) which were both companion pieces to BBC television series. The script was written by Alexander McCall Smith, author of many books set in Botswana. Paul Newman provides the narration, which was recorded at a studio near his home shortly before his death. The Meerkats was the final film credit of Newman's long career. [1] [3]

Meerkat Manor: The Story Begins , a second feature-length wildlife film on meerkats, was also released in 2008. It was produced by Animal Planet, Discovery Films and Oxford Scientific Films, the makers of Meerkat Manor , but was not screened in theatres. BBC Films' Joe Oppenheimer, a producer of The Meerkats, has stated that the two films are very different in character (the BBC and Discovery originally planned to collaborate, but couldn't agree on a common ground). James Honeyborne has described The Meerkats as "a stand-alone, blue-chip wildlife film from the ground up. It will be immersive. There will be a huge sense of place on a massive scale. You will really see real wild animals." [4]

Awards

Reception

Writing in The Guardian , reviewer Philip French noted that the "nature movie made in the Kalahari desert has some good footage but is more Disney-anthropomorphic than Attenborough". [7]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kuruman</span> Place in Northern Cape, South Africa

Kuruman is a small town in the Northern Cape province of South Africa. It is known for its scenery and the Eye of Kuruman, a geological feature that brings water from deep underground. The abundance of water produces an unexpected swathe of green amidst the barren plains and is known as the "Oasis of the Kalahari". It was at first a mission station of the London Missionary Society founded by Robert Moffat in 1821. It was also the place where David Livingstone arrived for his first position as a missionary in 1841. The Kuruman River, which is dry except for flash floods after heavy rain, is named after the town.

<i>Natural World</i> (TV series) British TV series or programme

Natural World is a strand of British wildlife documentary programmes broadcast on BBC Two and BBC Two HD and regarded by the BBC as its flagship natural history series. It is the longest-running documentary in its genre on British television, with nearly 500 episodes broadcast since its inception in 1983. Natural World programmes are typically one-off films that take an in-depth look at particular natural history events, stories or subjects from around the globe.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nature documentary</span> Documentary genre

A nature documentary or wildlife documentary is a genre of documentary film or series about animals, plants, or other non-human living creatures. Nature documentaries usually concentrate on video taken in the subject's natural habitat, but often including footage of trained and captive animals, too. Sometimes they are about wildlife or ecosystems in relationship to human beings. Such programmes are most frequently made for television, particularly for public broadcasting channels, but some are also made for the cinema. The proliferation of this genre occurred almost simultaneously alongside the production of similar television series which is distributed across the world.

<i>Meerkat Manor</i> British television series about a meerkat family

Meerkat Manor is a British television documentary produced by Oxford Scientific Films that premiered in September 2005. Originally broadcast on Animal Planet International for four seasons, until its cancellation in August 2008, the programme had a revival in 2021 with the programme now known as Meerkat Manor: Rise of the Dynasty in some countries. Using traditional animal documentary style footage along with narration, the series told the story of the Whiskers, one of more than a dozen families of meerkats in the Kalahari Desert being studied as part of the Kalahari Meerkat Project, a long-term field study into the ecological causes and evolutionary consequences of the cooperative nature of meerkats. The original programme was narrated by Bill Nighy, with the narration redubbed by Mike Goldman for the Australian airings and Sean Astin for the American broadcasts. The fourth series, subtitled The Next Generation, saw Stockard Channing replacing Astin as the narrator in the American dubbing. In 2021, Nighy could be heard narrating the new series of Meerkat Manor when it was broadcast in the United States on BBC America and on Channel 5 in the United Kingdom, making it the first time that both television markets have used the same voice over on the programme.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Neil Nightingale</span>

Neil Nightingale is a British freelance wildlife filmmaker, executive producer and creative consultant with over 35 years experience at the BBC. From 2009 to 2018 he was the creative director of BBC Earth, BBC Worldwide's global brand for all BBC nature and science content.

Tristan Bayer is an American actor, filmmaker and the host of the Animal Planet series Caught in the Moment, and was nominated for an Emmy for individual achievement in a craft: cinematography.

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. The secondary aims of the project are to determine what factors affect the reproductive success of the meerkats and what behavioral and physiological mechanisms control both reproduction and cooperative behavior. The project is also working on monitoring overall plant and animal populations within the reserve and work with the nearby community of Van Zylsrus in the areas of conservation and sustainable use of resources.

<i>Wild Africa</i> British TV series or programme

Wild Africa is a British nature documentary series created and produced by the BBC. It explores the natural history of the African continent. It was first transmitted on 7 November 2001 on BBC Two in the United Kingdom and comprises six episodes. Each concentrates on a particular environment. The producers use aerial photography and wildlife footage to show how natural phenomena such as seasonal changes influence the patterns of life. Wild Africa was produced by the BBC Natural History Unit and narrated by Fergal Keane.

<i>Galápagos</i> (2006 TV series) 2006 British TV series or programme

Galápagos is a three-part BBC nature documentary series exploring the natural history of the Galápagos Islands and their important role in the formation of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. It was first transmitted in the UK on BBC Two in September 2006.

William Goodchild is a composer, orchestrator and conductor who produces music for film, television and the concert hall.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James Honeyborne</span>

James Honeyborne is the creative director of Freeborne Media, he previously worked as an executive producer at the BBC Natural History Unit where he oversaw some 35 films, working with multiple co-producers around the world. His projects include the Emmy Award and BAFTA-winning series Blue Planet II, the Emmy Award-nominated series Wild New Zealand with National Geographic, and the BAFTA-winning BBC1 series Big Blue Live with PBS.

<i>Meerkat Manor: The Story Begins</i> 2008 television film directed by Mike Slee

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.

Oxford Scientific Films (OSF) is a British company that produces natural history and documentary programmes. Founded as an independent company on 8 July 1968, by documentary filmmaker Gerald Thompson, it broke new ground in the world of documentaries, using new filming techniques and capturing footage of never before filmed activities of its various subjects. In 1996, Oxford Scientific Films was sold to Circle Communications, where it retained its own identity as a division within the company. The following year, Circle Communications was taken over by Southern Star Entertainment UK. Under the new ownership, Oxford Scientific Films produced multiple award-winning programmes and films, including the Animal Planet series Meerkat Manor.

<i>Yellowstone</i> (British TV series) British TV series or programme

Yellowstone is a BBC nature documentary series broadcast from 15 March 2009. Narrated by Peter Firth, the series takes a look at a year in the life of Yellowstone National Park, examining how its wildlife adapts to living in one of the harshest wildernesses on Earth. Yellowstone debuted on BBC Two at 8:00pm on Sunday 15 March 2009 and has three episodes. Each 50-minute episode was followed by a ten-minute film called Yellowstone People, featuring visitors to the Park and locals who had assisted the production team. The series was the channel's highest-rated natural history documentary in over five years with audiences peaking at over four million.

Sarah Class is an English composer, singer and songwriter.

Planet Earth Live is a live-action nature documentary screened on British television. Produced by the BBC Natural History Unit and broadcast in May 2012, the programme was presented by Richard Hammond and Julia Bradbury.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Patrick Morris (director)</span>

Patrick Morris is a British producer, director and series producer of many wildlife documentaries.

Planet Earth is a television and film documentary franchise produced and broadcast by the BBC. The franchise began in 2001 with the success of The Blue Planet. As of 2017, The Blue Planet has spawned 5 series and one feature film.

Meerkats have been subject to numerous cultural depictions, and have featured in television programmes, films, books, and other media.

References

  1. 1 2 "Festival screens Newman swansong". BBC Online . 5 October 2008.
  2. "The Meerkats: BBC Films and the BBC Natural History Unit collaborate on ambitious first feature film". BBC Press Office. 1 November 2006.
  3. "French film festival to show Paul Newman's last work". Enjoy France News. 6 October 2008.
  4. Lyons, Charles (17 December 2006). "After a Run of Penguin Chic, It's the Year of the Meerkat". The New York Times .
  5. The Meerkats , retrieved 17 October 2017
  6. "Roscar Award Winners". screenafrica.com. Retrieved 17 October 2017.
  7. French, Philip (9 August 2009). "The Meerkats". The Guardian .