Christoph Rehage went for a walk, a very long walk in fact, 4646 km from Germany to China and then around the country. The Longest Way is an unusual record of the trip starring his beard, 646,000 views on Vimeo later (that’s just Vimeo) I caught up with him to get some info.

JTV: How did you get the idea to make a travel video focussing on your beard, most people would be shooting pretty shots of the landscape ?
CR: I originally didn’t intend to shoot a video of my beard. But after walking for a week I thought, what the heck, might as well grow it out. Run Forrest, run.

JTV: What does your beard or lack of beard symbolise ?
CR: The beard doesn’t symbolize anything in the beginning. Getting rid of the beard means something though. I think it is about getting rid of one’s obsessions in a way.

JTV: Did people respond to you differently the longer your beard got ?
CR: They thought I was an old man. Ladies on the street once asked me whether I was 50 years old. Young people don’t grow beards in those areas.

JTV: Is wearing a long beard difficult ?
CR: It’s not difficult, stroking it in a very pretentious way can be a lot of fun actually.

JTV: There’s a real change in mood at the end, can you explain why it changes ?
CR: If you watch the movie carefully, you will get a clue.

JTV: Which camera did you use and how did you match up the shots, did you draw on the LCD screen ?
CR: I used a 5d with a 16-35mm lens. I just stretched my arms for the shots and did the aligning of the eyes later in Photoshop. I had to align every single frame in Photoshop prior to making them into the time lapse in Premiere.

JTV:How long did the video take to edit and what was the trickiest thing abut editing it ?
CR: Editing took 4 months, and the trickiest part besides the aligning of the eye-level, and besides the rhythm of the soundtrack was really the point where I chose to do it all over again because I noticed that YouTube featured HD, and I wanted that for my video too.

JTV: What kind of response have you got from the video, any interesting comments ?
CR: I am happy when people like it. Very happy. I don’t think a lot of people share the same view on it with me though. I am not surprised by this, but every once in a while I get a comment or an email where I can feel that someone out there got a hint of my understanding of the whole thing. Feels good for me.

JTV: What’s next for Christoph Rehage ?
CR: Be a man. (I know it sounds tacky, but it is what it is, and there is no way around it at some point in life.)