How the heck did Disney make ‘The Lion King’ feel so real? Your burning questions, answered

When an entire herd of wildebeest careen across the movie screen and seemingly real lions converse with each other in the new version of “The Lion King” (in theaters Friday), big questions come to mind.

Such as, how the heck did director Jon Favreau do that?

His remake of the 1994 animated film is an epic visual achievement, with Donald Glover voicing the adult lion Simba, Beyoncé the lioness Nala and the iconic James Earl Jones returning to voice Mufasa in an entirely new, stunning world.

The photorealistic creatures and vast African vistas have even wowed “Lion King” critics. How Disney achieved this is just one of the burning questions we set out to answer.

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So how did they make ‘Lion King’ so jaw-droppingly photorealistic?

Simba (left) and Mufasa survey their vast kingdom in "The Lion King." (Photo: WALT DISNEY STUDIOS)

Neither green screen nor motion-capture performances were involved. Everything seen onscreen was created by cutting-edge computer animation in a virtual reality environment, essentially shot in a powerful video-game engine.

“Only a few shots were in Kenya; the rest was shot on a stage in Playa Vista (California),” says “Lion King” director of photography Caleb Deschanel. 

This required a blend of traditional live-action filmmaking techniques, state-of-the-art virtual reality tools and the highest level of computer-generated animation, a step beyond the techniques Favreau used to bring 2016’s “The Jungle Book” to life (earning an Oscar for best visual achievement).

Favreau and his team donned virtual reality headsets and walked around within the virtual set: setting up shots with low-resolution versions of the characters and choreographing movements while adjusting lighting and sequences in real time. 

“You use the goggles to see where the action is,” says Deschanel. “Everything was almost exactly like it is when you make a real live-action movie.”

Once the scenes and voice performances were captured, animators took on the task of fully computer-animating the scene in the lifelike detail. 

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Where did they find an elephant graveyard?

Nala and Simba visit the desolate elephant graveyard in "The Lion King." (Photo: WALT DISNEY)

In both the original and the new film, evil uncle Scar (now voiced by Chiwetel Ejiofor) entices young Simba to leave the safety of the watering hole by mentioning the “elephant graveyard.” It’s no place for a young prince, but it’s where old elephants go to die, a site filled with bones. Naturally, Simba takes Nala to go check it out.

The “elephant graveyard” concept is a famous myth, the type of tale told by big game hunters dreaming of untold riches from recovering the elephants’ ivory tusks. 

To visualize the barren wasteland, filmmakers used the porous volcanic tufa towers in Mono Lake, California, and the eerie geothermal pools of Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming as visual references.

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