INTERVIEW & PICS: Cinematographer brings wilds of Botswana to Nat Geo WILD’s ‘Savage Kingdom’
Savage Kingdom is being billed as one of the most epic and ambitious TV projects yet for Nat Geo WILD, and the man responsible for the footage is cinematographer Brad Bestelink. With thrilling scenes of animal predators in Botswana, a soaring soundtrack and narration by Game of Thrones’ Charles Dance, the TV series promises a visual safari of charismatic megafauna.
Savage Kingdom, which was shot in 4K, will premiere Friday, Nov. 25 at 9 p.m. The debut episode follows a lioness trying to stay atop the Marsh Pride and a solitary, stalking leopard who lurks in the shadows of Leopard Rock.
For Bestelink, the stories of these animals are the stories of his life.
“I’m sort of a fourth-generation Botswana bush person,” he said recently in a phone interview. “I grew up in that environment, and I still live there. So animals are very much part of our lives, and I’m more familiar with wildlife, wild places than I am with city and people.”
The footage for the series was shot east of the world-famous Okavango Delta in a part of Botswana known as Chobe National Park. Anyone who knows safari destinations knows that Chobe is a paradisiacal setting for elephants, lions, African wild dogs and other species.
“The whole Savage Kingdom series is really a perspective piece about one particular area, and you follow the lives of several different predator families,” Bestelink said. “We can’t anticipate what the animals are going to do. … We find very strong characters that you can work with.”
When Bestelink is in the bush for his documentary work, he is constantly thinking about the narratives playing out before him. In order to have a successful film, the team needs to pick up on the nuances of nature and cast the film with animal characters. “I think you have to really have an endpoint to a goal,” he said. “It does change. It shifts. It shapes, but you’ve got a clear idea of where you want to go while you’re filming it.”
Bestelink loves most of the main predators in Africa, but as an expert in the field he appreciates the lesser known carnivores, like African wild dogs.
“Dogs haven’t had a lot of coverage, influence,” he said. “Likewise with hyenas. They’re not a glamorous subject, and they’ve always been given a bad rap. It’s nice to delve into their lives a little bit. You see that they are amazingly complex creatures who find it equally hard, if not harder, than the big lion and the more glamorous type of predators. … Working with animals that you wouldn’t normally work with is full of discovery. It’s a lot of excitement, learning. That’s essentially why we do it, so I love to work with dogs. I love to work with hyenas and the lesser predators as well as the bigger ones.”
The cinematographer said that for Savage Kingdom the team uncovered extra layers to the animals’ lives. He also didn’t shy away from what predators must to do to survive.
“They are predators,” he said. “They kill for a living. They need to kill to survive, and they [other TV programs] sanitize so much that you don’t really realize the struggle and the lives that they lead. It’s brutal, but it’s so natural. With this series, hopefully, it’s a lot more real … how hard they have to work to survive, and I think getting that next layer of narrative really affected me emotionally.”
Bestelink’s home country of Botswana, located near South Africa, Zimbabwe and Namibia, is the best place in southern Africa for a wildlife experience, according to the cinematographer.
“We have a very small population of people, and wild areas and wild places,” he said. “We have a very progressive government who really spends a lot of time, a lot of effort protecting these great natural resources. Animals in Botswana are considered national assets, so there’s a whole mindset toward protecting the environment and the wildlife that it has. … I think it would be very hard for people to travel to other countries once they’ve been to Botswana. It really does spoil in terms of the safari experience and getting to know Africa’s predators.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Savage Kingdom premieres Friday, Nov. 25 at 9 p.m. on Nat Geo WILD. Click here for more information.
