LION is a four-part natural-history series from director Jon Favreau and executive producer Mike Gunton , following Kio, a lion born in Kenya’s Maasai Mara, over four years as he develops from a cub into an adult male. It’s a film where nature reveals a story no one could script.

Over four years, the production logged nearly 1,400 filming days across 52 shoots. This is the first natural history production to document a lion's complete journey from vulnerable cub to king.

The story that nature tells

Favreau said they tried to build on the traditions of natural history filmmaking, while new technology gave them the opportunity to film in a more emotionally resonant and engaging way.

“Things that I would have to struggle for months, if not years, to create digitally, we got instantaneously because that’s just the beauty that nature presents," he said.

Favreau noted that following the lions also gave him an unexpected emotional connection to the animals. “On the one hand, this, this bounty of, you know, incredible gifts as a filmmaker that we got. But on the other side, we had zero control over what happened.”

That uncertainty shaped the production. Favreau said they didn’t know which lions would survive, which ones they would follow or what their story would be.

“We were really committed to not manipulating the footage, using anything but narrative tools like music and editing. We didn’t want to do anything digital. We didn’t want to change, uh, performances in any way.”

“This story is completely organic,” Favreau said. He notes that while the production captured about 1,000 hours of footage, the filmmakers still had to curate it, choosing which storylines to follow.

Sophie Darlington, the Director of Photography, said that there was no way to tell what would be historically important over the four years of filming, so they just kept filming.

“Looking back to the day we met Kio, it was during an early shoot. We noticed a lioness leave the pride and we decided to follow," said Darlington. "She was walking in tall grass when we saw a cub between her legs. That was Kio.”

“Had you told me in that moment that we would follow this little cub all the way to him being a magnificent male, I don’t think I would’ve believed you,” she added.

Darlington said that in some ways, when a lion was in their lens, they all wanted to get inside that lion’s head. “We tried to do this by using a very shallow depth of field, and close intimate shots.”

“We are always led by a movement, something we never superimpose, but only react to,” she added.

The film’s visual language

Darlington says that the film’s visual language subtly changed as Kio grew from cub to king. “We had a huge pride of lions when we started shooting, so upon meeting Kio, there was no way of knowing if he’d survive,” said Darlington.

She says that specialized low mounts were built so that they could keep things at eye-level, using a natural visual style.

“We shot at low level because we wanted people to feel almost as if they are a part of the pride,” she said. “As Kio grew, we adjusted the mounts, always making sure to maintain the feel of being immersed in the lion’s world, while also keeping the Maasai Mara front and center. ”

Mike Gunton, Executive Producer and the creative director of The Natural History Unit for BBC Studios, said it was the first time they were able to bring all these tools together to create the film.

“The drone was such a wonderful gift for us because it allows you to see almost like chess pieces moving around the board," said Gunton. “They had these new sensors, and they allowed us to shoot—it doesn’t sound like much—but 30 minutes earlier and 30 minutes later in the day.”

“When do lions do most of the interesting things? Right at the beginning of the day, when most cameras can’t work, and right at the end of the day, when most cameras can’t work.”

“So we got those extra little windows of their lives, which made a huge difference," he said

Gunton said filmmakers can't ask a lion to repeat a moment. “You cannot say to a lion, stop, we haven’t got the camera ready. Can you go back and do that again?”

“Take two,” added Favreau.

“Yeah, there’s no Take 2s,” said Gunton.

Anthony Njuguna, the film’s Aerial Cinematographer, said that lions spend 70% of their time sleeping. “Because of that behavior, you have to be there continuously, to both anticipate and be prepared for when they give you that 30%, and that 30% is actually what is required to make a good day, a good sequence,” he said.

Njuguna says that usually happens very quickly. “As we’ve seen in the different interactions [..], action might happen after just minutes, or hours could drag on before something occurs.

One of those moments that stood out for Njuguna was the lion, Summer, who had gone out in the early morning for a kill.

“The night prior, she had left Kio somewhere else, and we witnessed the instant that Summer realized she must go back for Kio, and though this must have been a four-kilometer journey, she just knew exactly where to walk – along the way, smelling her own footprints from the night before," he said. “That was an incredibly beautiful moment.”

Njuguna says there were a few hacks he used with the drones when it came to sound because he needed to be able to maneuver without affecting lion behavior.

“When they were engaged in an activity, I had to be very observant about exactly which activity that was, given that different behaviors come with different sensitivities to sound,” he said.

Njuguna said that the drone came in handy and was a great hack when different scouting teams - drivers, film crew, the guides, and spotter vehicles were involved. "Its telephoto lens sometimes allowed me to find the lions at the same time as a very crucial behavior.”

Gunton described the drone as a new way of seeing the pride. “It not only allows you to get into the world of these animals and see every little kind of what’s their thinking, how their eyes move, but also we were able to jump back and see how they play in this, on the stage, so to speak," he added.

Favreau said there were a lot of new camera platforms available that made the project different from those that came before, including quiet drones and a crane system with a stabilized remote head.

“That remote head is stabilized and underslung, and that allowed us to get to the eye level of the lions, which gave us a whole other layer of emotional dimension. Because that’s how I would cover a scene to get emotional connection with a human actor. You want to be eye-level, and you want to see what they’re thinking.”

Darlington agrees. “The closest I might be able to come to hacks was simply just always being ready and never taking anything for granted. Long takes allowed emotion to come through,” she said.

But as for the camera tech, she says the gimbal used captured a dreamlike quality. “We didn’t want that camera setup to be for behavior; rather, we wanted it to put the lions in a sense of place. I really feel that by doing so, a kind of dreaminess was achieved.”

The production of LION has listed a lot of filming firsts, but Njuguna said that everything was a first for him. “I had never been on a natural history shoot before, never spent that much time in the wild, nor had I ever spent that much time with lions, so just being able to witness their relationships within the pride but also their relationship to all else that was around them, was a first.”

"They listen to sounds, whether the calls of other pride members or those of hyenas on a kill, the lions ever opportunistic. The way they think is incredible.”

After four years of following one pride, Darlington said that she learned that the lions still did things to surprise them. “One thing I adore about them is that, though we all think of them as kings of the jungle, they sometimes seem to be silly or even foolish.”

This echoes Favreau’s belief in what LION gives to viewers. He notes that in today’s world it's becoming more of a challenge to discern authenticity in what we watch and read.

“The beauty that nature presents, the empathy you get from seeing their faces and watching them as they struggle to survive, it's something we need today in the world,” he added.

The series premieres August 19 on National Geographic at 9 pm ET and 8 pm CT, with all episodes streaming August 20 on Disney+ and Hulu.