This docuseries is being touted as "groundbreaking natural history filmmaking." Director of photography Sophie Darlington explains why.
"Do you know what it is? It's being allowed to have four years to follow one pride of lions and to give complete control to them. They wrote the script. We just were there to capture it," Darlington said.
The crew shot for about 1,400 days - the most time ever spent following a single pride. It took that time to capture these lions in good times, challenging times and sad times while focusing on the cub named Kio - their future lion king.
"And it takes a lot of nerve because this is a tricky project. It's a risky project," said executive producer Michael Gunton. "You understand that life does have its ups and downs but, in the end, as long as you try to move on, you will succeed and this amazing lion does."
Jon Favreau, who directed the live action version of "The Lion King," is also an executive producer on "Lion."
"You have to go where your curiosity draws you," said Favreau. "And then Mike came to me and said, 'There's an opportunity here to do something unprecedented, which is following a pride of lions.' He was saying if we could embed for four years, we could tell a story with a scope that's never been told before."
"There are no people in it," said Darlington. "This is absolutely about one lion family, but what it is is a story of heart and a drama and one for the whole family."
You can see "Lion" starting Wednesday, Aug. 19, on Nat Geo and Thursday, Aug. 20 on Disney+ and Hulu.