Clogs: Not Just Footwear
Filmmaker/writer Stewart Engesser creates a new sport -- clogging -- in his award-winning mockumentary "The Cloggers of Putneyville," which will be featured in the BF/VF Meet The Directors series this month.

By James Mentink

A still from "The Cloggers of Putneyville." [Click to enlarge]

One doesn’t ordinarily think of clogging as an extreme sport, but if Yancy Putney and Buck Swope, characters in the film "The Cloggers of Putneyville" had their way, it would be. In keeping with comedies like Christopher Guest's "Best in Show" and Rob Reiner's "Spinal Tap," the film "documents" the people and culture surrounding a fictional antecedent of extreme sports known as "Pocono Clogging." Following the lives of Pocono Cloggers Yancy Putney (Stewart Engesser) and Buck Swope (Joseph Hart Speiden), the film incorporates interviews, "archival" photos, and footage of Pocono clogging.

NewEnglandFilm.com spoke with director Stewart Engesser recently about the mockumentary that he and co-creator Jay Speiden filmed.

JM: Where did the idea of "The Cloggers of Putneyville" originate?

Engesser: A few years ago myself, Lela Williams and Leslie Banker [Holly Hobaugh and Leslie Smits in the film] went hiking in a ski basin above Santa Fe. It had started to snow on the way, and when we got there we realized that Lela and Leslie had forgotten boots. All they had were clogs. We hiked anyway. They fell down often, sometimes quite spectacularly. Clearly clogs are not designed for walking around in rough, slippery terrain. They keep falling off, they provide no traction. The wooden soles collect snow in wet, heavy, clumps. On that day an idea was born.

JM: How long have either of you been interested in films, or creating them?

Engesser: In the early ‘90s I spent some time in Bangkok, and one of the most amazing things I saw there was in a bar called the Happy Smile. They played "Forrest Gump" all day, and people watched it. Everyone watched it. No one even talked. It was like everyone was under some kind of voodoo spell. That’s when I thought to myself -- well, there is some money to be made making these movie things. Unfortunately, I guess a lot of people have had the same idea, because we are finding that trying to sell a movie is very competitive.

JM: Who are some directors whom you feel have set a standard as far as filmmaking goes?

Engesser: Wes Anderson and Christopher Guest for wit, intelligence, and attention to detail. In the case of Wes Anderson, I also think he helped take the art of the soundtrack to another level, as Quentin Tarantino did in the ‘90s. I also really love B-movies: teenploitation, trucker films, beach flicks, film noir, ‘50s sci-fi. For years Ed Wood’s "Plan 9 from Outer Space" set the standard for the worst possible releasable film -- and now it’s seen as a classic. I find that inspiring.

JM: Are you guys seriously avid fans of clogging or is that part of the farce?

Engesser: Well, we weren’t, but since we did the film, every week or so Jay will slip on his clogs and head out across the Golden Gate Bridge, to clog the rolling hills and valleys of Sonoma. He does it at night, though, which seems odd.

JM: How did you two originally meet and get the idea to collaborate?

Engesser: We both went to Denison University in Ohio, or as drug–ravaged memoirist James Frey, a fellow alum, describes it, "a small liberal arts college in the mid-west" (perhaps hoping people will mistake it for Oberlin). We bonded because both Jay and I read books, an activity not common at Denison. On the day we met I was wearing a "Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas" t-shirt, and since Jay is from Louisville, Hunter S. Thompson’s hometown, he was interested enough to hand me a warm can of Busch and start a conversation. But he told me his name was Hetch Rawthorn. Weeks later I had to write him a check for something and he finally came clean. But that’s OK. He still thinks I’m Haitian, and that my name is Octavio.

JM: What are reasons that you feel film is an important medium? Or is it less about importance and more about just entertaining people?

Engesser: A movie incorporates so many mediums of expression -- writing, music, photography, acting... I enjoy that complexity, so film’s an interesting, important, medium to me. It’s certainly not important to everyone, though. Some people prefer trout fishing, or even home maintenance.

I definitely feel that a film must entertain. It can be beautiful looking, serious, ugly, funny, whatever, but it must engage you. That’s its job. And it’s an important job.

JM: What are the secrets to 'wrighting' a really good clog?

Engesser: A good grinding wheel, and patience. Beer helps. Buck Swope will tell you that you have to listen to each clog you wright, that each clog has its own spirit. He says that some clogs are loud and rude and that these clogs need to be treated harshly and with discipline, while other clogs are quiet and sweet and will only whisper to you in the dead of night, if they talk to you at all. According to Buck, the latter are the best for extreme clogging because they are "old soul" clogs that already know the trails. Of course, Buck Swope is just a made up character, so I’m not so sure you can trust him.

JM: What are the secrets to writing a mockumentary, or was it improvised a good deal?

Engesser: If you want to write a mockumentary, immerse yourself in the subject completely. Before filming, Jay, John Tague [who plays Ken Stryker] and I met up in Anaheim, at a natural foods convention, and we spent the whole weekend in character: full costume, everything. At one point Jay stole a few hundred dollars worth of herbal supplements; he just started picking up display samples and dropping them in his satchel. No one said a word. We were wearing dirty jumpsuits, bad sunglasses, clogs. People were afraid to mess with us. That was a fun weekend, and we got some good material out of it. In fact, it was in Anaheim where Jay and I worked out the vocal parts for the song we sing together at the end of the film. It was late at night, and we were walking back from a Mexican restaurant. Singing about clogging, walking the streets of Anaheim --those were the days. Anaheim had good vibes for us. It’s seedy. At least it was where we stayed.

As far as the script goes, it was almost all scripted, although we had improv’ed around the characters for months before we sat down to write it. We had four days to shoot the film, and we knew that if we didn’t script it out, things could devolve into chaos. At the same time, we left a few scenes open -- the Meet & Greet was all improvised, as well as the Training Day scene. So we had a mix -- some scenes where we could let loose and try to crack each other up, and some scenes that were carefully structured. Although we still managed to crack each other up. I’ve never laughed as much as I did that weekend, in fact. I was in physical pain from it.

JM: Where was "Cloggers of Putneyville" filmed and why did you choose that location?

Engesser: We did an initial three and a half day shoot in Northwest New Jersey, in the Delaware Water Gap region, and later on we shot for an hour in Maryland. We shot in New Jersey because it’s where I’m from, I know the region well, and so was able to pick locations easily. Also it’s just across the Delaware River from the fabled Poconos, so the look was right -- kind of washed out, faded, scrappy. Everyone stayed at my parent’s weekend house, where we shot many of the interior scenes, so it was fun. We drank a lot of beer.

All the Holly Hobaugh material we shot in Maryland, while we were doing the second round of edits. We shot directly behind Allen Moore’s editing studio (cinematographer Allen Moore deserves special mention -- he’s a brilliant cameraman, great to work with, and without his experience, talent and insight, we never would have been able to get what we got on film). While editing we decided we needed another character, so Allen grabbed a camera, I wrote the lines on the fly, and then we convinced my lovely wife Lela to play the part of Ph.D candidate Holly Hobaugh. We did a few takes of each section and that was it.

JM: What's next on the production schedule at Silver Buick Productions?

Engesser: We are writing a feature screenplay about a karate instructor who is able to halt the aging process through martial arts. Or so he claims.

We are also working on rewriting "Cloggers" as a feature-length screenplay. We’re adding car chases and a subplot about exotic animal smuggling -- a big problem in the Poconos.

We’re looking for funding for both these projects, which we hope to shoot ourselves on digital video, so if there is anyone who wants to give us money, all I can say is: go for it.

For more information about, and Silver Buick Productions, visit www.silverbuick.com or contact info@silverbuick.com.

Jim Mentink is a writer living in Maine.  He maintains a website for his writing at http://home.earthlink.net/~jmentink/main

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