and Ubuntu. Although the show faced criticism from viewers for not intervening when a meerkat was injured and faced death, Meerkat Manor enjoyed considerable success and was Animal Planet's top series in October 2007, both on the cable channel and through its video-on-demand service. The show's experimental format broke new ground in animal documentary filming techniques and gave viewers a long-term, intimate look into the lives of its meerkat stars, breaking the traditional wall between viewer and subject found with most documentaries. Meerkat Manor was nominated for three Primetime Emmy Awards: two in 2007 and one in 2008. It won awards at the 2006 Omni Awards, and at the 2006 and 2007 New York Festivals TV Broadcasting Awards. The first three series have been released to DVD in both Region 1 and Region 2. In 2007, a book entitled Meerkat Manor – The Story of Flower of the Kalahari was released in the UK, detailing the life of Flower and the Whiskers before the series' filming began. A television film, Meerkat Manor: The Story Begins, documenting Flower's birth and rise to matriarch of the Whiskers, aired on Animal Planet on 25 May 2008. Production details Meerkat Manor was created by Caroline Hawkins, executive producer and series editor at Oxford Scientific Films, and commissioned for Animal Planet International by executive producer and commissioning editor Mark Wild. Filming for a 13-episode series took seven to eight months, and was limited to the Kalahari spring and summer seasons, as meerkats are less active during winter. Series three was filmed from November 2006 through April 2007, and Series four began filming in October 2007. Most scenes were filmed on location at the Kuruman River Reserve, where the Kalahari Meerkat Project that the meerkats are a part of is based. However, the meerkats seen in commercials and on the show's website were not the same animals portrayed in Meerkat Manor. Instead, tamer-rescued meerkats from the Fellow Earthlings' Wildlife Center were filmed against a green screen. The show was primarily filmed using Sony DSR-570 cameras, although special equipment was needed for some unique footage. For scenes inside the animals' burrows, mini fibre-optic infra-red cameras were employed; wide-angle shots were filmed with a seven-metre crane and a remote-controlled camera platform. An off-camera wireless microphone was also used to record many meerkat vocalizations, only partially audible to cameras' on-board systems. Most filming was done by a single cameraman