The Landscaper’s Daughter: Journey from Short to Feature

By Asma Malik

Short films are, well, short. What they lack in length, they ardently make up with swift wit or pungent pizzazz. Occasionally, a short piece leaves us wanting more. The Landscaper's Daughter has successfully done so, and now the exceptional motion picture is en route to travel the coveted journey from short to feature.

The Journey: Praise Makes it Possible

The notion of creating a feature length rendition was never part of the plan for The Landscaper's Daughter. Director Derek Curl readily says the short was made "without any inkling that it would ever be turned into a feature." During its well-received tour of veterans' homes and film festivals, Curl received an unexpected response: "You should make this into a feature film," he recalls the advice of award-winning director Oliver Stone.

"It's actually very humbling, because you only hope to make something that people will enjoy for what it is. And then for someone like Oliver Stone to see it as something larger was really something to be grateful for."

The Journey: A Change of Mind

Transitioning from a short to a feature required a change of mindset and purpose. Daughter's screenplay was co-written by Reeves Lehmann and his daughter, on a personal note; a veteran, Lehmann says it was a "must-do film for myself." Lehmann, both producer and lead actor for the short, is Chairman of Film, Video, and Animation at the School of Visual Arts (New York). He brought the project to Curl, who came to it out of respect for Reeves. It was a simpler production, as Curl describes, "There were no expectations placed on it other than to just do it. Let the chips fall where they may."

Going into the feature, "the chips can't just fall where they may," says Curl, noting the obligations imposed by the larger investment in people, time and money. Even though Lehmann and Curl are working to tell a deeper story, there's no way to know for sure how audiences will respond. "I want the story to have power and impact and sustainability in the marketplace," asserts the director. So this time around, the film's foundation needs not just additional effort - but more premeditated efforts.

The Journey: Conscious Nuance - Developing the Story

Consciously creating a deeper, further faceted story in the feature - aptly titled The Landscaper to reflect its new form - yet maintaining the intimate, nuance-laced feel of Daughter is perhaps the greatest challenge the feature will endure.

Daughter has enchanted audiences as a tale of a father's relationship with his daughter. Their multi-layered relationship is strained as the daughter tries to get closer to her father despite his psychological scars still remaining from Vietnam. But how does a director tackle a successful short story and expand it into something that will work for many more minutes?

"Immediately, my mind wants to [make] it a BIG movie. We have these big social issues we need to tackle, we have these headlines in the newspapers about [Iraq War] veterans coming back with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), and the VA hospitals are all rundown. So, part of it is trying to not to go to these big headlines." Curl explains, "If an intimate story is what hooked them in the short film, we have to keep it an intimate story in the feature."

The short found closeness, and nuances enabled it to subtly tackle much more than just the father-daughter relationship. Curl prefers this to the "sledgehammer" approach. But the numerous subtleties of Daughter weren't all consciously created. He reveals it was in striving for the honesty in the main relationship that other issues were "being dealt with, because that's what was there to be had verses what we were really creating." Maintaining the nuance: "It's all that I could possibly hope for the feature."

Still, ensuring fine pathos remains intact for Landscaper doesn't mean disregarding the realities of the veteran experience. As co-writer of the feature script, Lehmann's continued involvement with veterans is a source of inspiration. Listening to their experiences "made me want to expand on the short film and really address some of the other issues that plague combat veterans." To tackle more of these matters, Landscaper will introduce several new characters, most significantly two of the title character's fellow Vietnam War veterans and a vet returning from Iraq. Instead of handling the issues as hot headliners, the feature will continue the precedent Daughter established: sharing the struggles that veterans, and their loved ones, live through.

The Journey: Building Character

Maintaining close character relationships is more difficult with more characters. To overcome this obstacle, Curl returns to what worked well in the short film. He recalls the key was "finding that very special, intimate story that no one's heard." Daughter's closeness shines through the uniquely simple yet endearing moments depicting the ever-developing relationship between Charlie (the landscaper) and his daughter.

Landscaper's additional characters have essential relationships, too - layering both plot and characters. Lehmann, speaking during the pre-production phase, reveals that the landscaper and the new Vietnam War veterans were in Vietnam together, and they, too, struggle with the traumatic memories of that combat experience. The Iraq War veteran stirs relations as he works for the landscaper and comes to love his boss's daughter. They're definitely not lacking potential engaging moments with this bunch.

The intent is not simply a tale that speaks only about one war or the conflicts of one landscaper, but the effects of war on many. "I didn't want it to be about one war; I wanted it to be about war and the aftermath of that," shares Lehmann. "For the past 100 years, there hasn't been one generation that has not had to experience war, directly or indirectly."

Creating a feature also lends the opportunity to delve deeper into the short's established characters. Lehmann returns as Charlie and says that, although his character's overall personality hasn't changed, his speaking parts have been toned down. As an actor, he reflects: "I want things to be said just through the way he acts, the way he looks..." Charlie will also become more "the landscaper," as we see why landscaping is so essential to him. For the character, "it's about life, it's about beauty, and putting living things in the ground and nurturing them." Starkly different from what he had to do during wartime.

With vivid filmmakers lighting the way, The Landscaper's Daughter traverses an ambitious path on its journey to become The Landscaper. While they nurture the seedling, audiences must await the day it's ready to greet the sun.