Documenting Project Africa
Posted on Aug 2, 2024 by FEED Staff
Russ Cook, aka the Hardest Geezer, is an ultra-endurance athlete and the first person to run the length of Africa – raising over £1 million in the process. FEED sits down with cinematographer, photographer and director Jarred Karp, part of the team who captured the mission that captivated the world
Words by Verity Butler Pictures by Jarred Karp (@saint_yared)
“In less than one month, Project Africa begins. 360 marathons in 240 days – and this is how I’m going to do it,” loudly claims a strikingly ginger-bearded English man, soon to become known to the world as being the first person to run across the entire length of Africa.
On 7 April 2024, Russ Cook, who is better known to those on the internet as the Hardest Geezer, successfully completed Project Africa, crossing the finish line in Tunisia after a painstaking 352 days spent hacking his way through jungles, dirt tracks and deserts.
Cook has said that, prior to setting off on the mammoth challenge, he had always hoped to look back at his life and have no regrets. The 27-year-old from Worthing, west Sussex, said he struggled previously with his mental health, gambling and drinking, and wanted to ‘make a difference’. If one thing is certain, he can tick that last goal off his list.
As of June 2024, Cook has raised in excess of £1 million for charity – as a direct result of the project. When you pair this with the completion of the perilous challenge itself, his inspiring impact has been felt by many across the world.
However, it wasn’t just the endless days of ‘smashing tarmac’ (a phrase commonly used by Cook) that contributed to Project Africa’s success. He assembled a small team of adventurers, editors, videographers and filmmakers who travelled with him at different points across the vast continent, there to ensure the experience was recorded through the excruciatingly hard times – as well as the many uplifting good ones. Not only there to gather content for a yet-to-be-released documentary, the team were enlisted to film, edit and upload regular bi-weekly vlogs to the Hardest Geezer YouTube channel – plus content across other social media platforms.
Despite the abnormality of what Cook was attempting, it was a surprisingly gradual rise to fame – rather than the usual explosive virality that social media has been known to offer. It was predominantly in the final few months of the project that the Hardest Geezer YouTube channel truly began to skyrocket. Viewing numbers soared, and his progress became increasingly tracked across the mainstream media. This was reflected on the final day of the challenge, where hundreds flew out to Tunisia to either watch him cross the finish line, or even have the chance to run the concluding marathon alongside him.
The tearful looks of relief, exhaustion and somewhat disbelief that are seen in the last vlog and photographs from that surreal last day reflect the true magnitude of what the team had just undertaken. To put it plainly: a lot had happened since Cook had set off back in February 2023.
The beginning
In an emotional Instagram post that included a host of images of the team members that enabled Project Africa to happen, Cook’s caption read: ‘And just like that it’s over. Couldn’t of done it without you [sic].’ One of those tagged is South African director, cinematographer and photographer Jarred Karp. Karp was enrolled as director of the documentary, as well as being brought on to help with the YouTube and social content.
Photography being his early passion, Karp’s talent in the area can be seen in the many captivating images he took of Cook, the team and of course Nelly the van, throughout the experience. That early passion then developed into filmmaking, having graduated in 2022 in film, television and sound design.
While in the midst of recovering from a major spinal operation, Karp happened across a Facebook advert by none other than Russ Cook himself. The advert said that they were seeking a filmmaker who additionally had first aid and overlanding experience.
“I sent him an email at about 7.30,” says Karp. “Then at about 10.30 that night, he gave me a call. By the Sunday, after a few more calls, he said ‘we want you on the team, can you join me in three days in Cape Town?’”
Being brought in last minute meant a quick turnaround, leaving Karp little time to get his affairs in order and a production plan in place.
“The first thing I had to figure out was getting rid of my apartment that I was renting. In between all of that I was having phone calls with the producer, Josh, where we started speaking about the creative language of the film and where the style was currently sitting – what he’d pre-shot and what his vision for the documentary was. Then I bought a sleeping bag and got on a plane.”
A key requisite to being on the Project Africa team was to be able to pack light. Though Nelly had been craftily built to stow as many humans, cameras and energy drinks as possible – there was only so much she could fit. That meant the limited camera gear had to be chosen wisely.
“We had two Panasonic GH5s and two adapters for the Micro Four Thirds mount, which was great as I shoot everything with a Canon EF, so that meant I could integrate my lenses into everything.”
Up close and personal
As well as a lot of ground to cover, there was also a lot of content to capture – for a range of mediums.
“At the beginning,” Karp continues, “it was a lot easier because I was balancing photography, videography for the documentary and interviews for the daily vlogs. So from the get-go, we knew there was going to be quite an overlap of content, but one thing we were sure of is that we wanted both the YouTube and the documentary to stand on their own. When we were shooting, Stan would direct the YouTube side and I directed the documentary side.”
“We had to tick off a list in our minds every day of what we needed to get. In terms of photography, I knew I needed some of Russ, some of each of the crew, some of Nelly, some location stuff to show where we are – and so on.”
Karp’s key responsibility when it came to the YouTube segment would be to conduct occasional interviews with Cook, where he would ask him anything from what meal he would eat if he could at that moment – to the deeper topics of how he was truly coping, or who he was missing from home. These candid interviews would feel intimate and at times vulnerable; the way in which they were spliced between clips of Cook gulping down a protein shake or re-joining the group after a casual half-marathon stint allowed viewers to feel as if they were sat right there in the sweltering jungle with him. They discreetly exposed Cook and the team’s emotional mindset at that given time – without having the vlogs lose their usual conversational and light-hearted tone.
“You follow a formula when it comes to your shooting. You had to talk to Russ nonchalantly: you couldn’t drop the heavy questions on him every day. I would try every few days to sit down with him for a more in-depth conversation.
“Often, I wouldn’t have a camera in my hand when those conversations would start. I would kind of put out the point I wanted to get to, and then I would start easing him into that. Then, when the time felt right, I would pull out a camera and start talking about the serious stuff.”
Karp and the team, though wanting to take a lighter approach to the filming of the YouTube content, had a clear vision when it came to differentiating it to other creators on the platform.
“One of our initial decisions was that we didn’t want to be a travel channel,” explains Karp. “We wanted people to feel like they were on Project Africa with us; I think we succeeded in doing that.
“We wanted people to feel like every three days, when they opened that episode and watched, they felt like they were transported for 20 minutes to the Congo, to Angola – wherever it may be.”
Succeed in this they did, because when making your way through the lengthy Project Africa YouTube playlist, a pattern quickly begins to emerge. Viewers of course bear witness to the unbelievable feat of a man attempting to break all endurance barriers possible.
But on top of this, every video weaves in the many incredible people, diverse cultures, villages and cities that the team encounter. These flashes of humanity threaded throughout the videos warmly splash colour and depth onto an already technicoloured canvas.
“People were such a massive part of our journey – of our personal journeys and the mission as a whole. To leave out that from the videos would have been to leave out a third of the story entirely. The amount we learnt about people and the kind of love that we received throughout the mission – and the respect and the time they gave us – you can’t just leave that out. That is imperative to create the full circle of the story.”
Bumps in the road
Part of what made the YouTube series so captivating were the many challenges the team encountered, which often involved facing extreme danger. These included a series of health issues for Cook, from blood in his urine to chronic back pain. As well as health troubles, there were problems surrounding visas, Nelly breaking down multiple times, division within the team and most notably Day 102 of the Project, which entailed Cook’s kidnap – this undoubtedly took the lead as the project’s most perilous predicament.
Karp additionally references the time when the team were accosted in Angola and robbed at gunpoint for most of their key belongings.
“There was a drone stolen, a camera, a lens, phones, passports, wallets, cash. I think it amounted to close to about £5000 in total. Interestingly, the robbery was the day when everything went kind of viral.
“CNN and BBC both picked it up. There was a major football event going on for Angola, so the president realised he would have to make good and got us a 24-hour police guard. Once the news picked it up in Angola, lots of influential local running clubs stepped up and got us cash, hotels, food – they just helped in any way they could.
“Then, just after the robbery, the sponsorship started picking up – Huel came in, so did Perfect Ted. I’m a firm believer that a story is written, and I think our story was written for this climactic up and then this beautiful, slow descent – and it really helped us through.”
Mindset and group harmony were critical in overcoming the hurdles they faced; this circular way of extracting any positives that came from the negatives is what ultimately pushed them forwards to the finish line.
“In the end, every day there were problems,” adds Karp. “You had to come onto the mission with a problem-solving mindset. Everything kind of becomes a blur in the end. You wake up, you drive, you dump footage, make food and then you sleep. That’s kind of your bracket routine. Whatever happens in-between just becomes a blur. It’s constant problem-solving.
“Like when we were robbed. Within two days, the team were past it. We had spilt-milk mentality: to just move on. There’s no point just sitting there and crying about it. When we eventually sat down and shot the interviews for the robbery episode about two weeks later, all of us had to sit for a minute and think, what actually happened?.”
The closing chapter
Though Karp wasn’t with the crew in the final week of the project, he made sure he was there to witness that magical last day.
“When I arrived in Tunisia, I went to a hotel that everyone called the Geezer Hotel, because Russ had got the whole place rented out. It felt like I was in a movie because people knew who we were. That’s when I felt like we had definitely done what we set out to do.
“People would come to me and say, ‘I know this is weird, but I feel like you’re my best friend and you don’t even know who I am’. It was so amazing that people felt like they became our friends through the mission. They weren’t just fans of it, they were part of it.”
There was a palpable atmosphere and an inspiring shared feeling among those waiting for Cook at the finish line, as described by Karp.
“It was crazy to see everyone coming together, different fitness levels, wealth, backgrounds – all to support this single person. They all shared the same ideology that Russ had created and instilled in himself and in the videos – that had clearly resonated with people.”
With the documentary having just finished up in post-production, Karp looks to future projects – and how this life-changing experience has altered his approach.
“I’m looking for something that inspires me. That doesn’t have to be as crazy as going across Africa – that’s not a maintainable lifestyle.
“I’m trying to find whatever excites me. If it’s nine months away, a year away, cool.”
When asked for one last reflection on Project Africa, Karp took the moment to appreciate the rest of the team.
“It couldn’t have been a better team,” he concludes. “The camaraderie, the way that we all came together and worked together. The respect we learnt for each other in our own crafts. But at the same time, we developed a bond way bigger than just friends.
“We became a brotherhood. None of this would have been possible without every person from start to end, whether they came and stayed – or went. Every single person had such an amazing impact on the mission and it truly wouldn’t have been completed if even one of us was missing.” .
This feature was first published in the Summer 2024 issue of FEED.
