TBI Q&A: Gaylene Preston
Home By Christmas is a film memoir based on filmmaker Gaylene Preston’s interviews with her father about his World War II experiences. The doco-drama reflects on the secret loves and enduring spirit that drove a generation.
Gaylene Preston answers The Big Idea community questions about making Home By Christmas, casting her daughter, re-telling the oral stories from both her father and mother and funding independent films in NZ.
“The thing I love about oral history is how colourful and exclusive our memories are. Every teller makes the story their own and so there are large differences between various versions in my experience.”
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Weaving strands of poetic imagined drama, and archival footage into the interview, reconstructed with actor Tony Barry as Ed Preston, Preston presents both sides of her parents’ wartime marriage with her daughter Chelsie Preston Crayford as Tui Preston (Chelsie’s own grandmother) and Martin Henderson as young Ed.
“I grew up after the War and when I was a little girl it felt like there were always three times: there was ‘before the War’ and ‘after the War’ and there was another time that was almost like a secret place called ‘during the War’. Home By Christmas is part of an investigation I’ve been making for a long time around that."
Preston is an esteemed NZ filmmaker and her previous feature films include Mr Wrong, Ruby and Rata, Bread & Roses, War Stories Our Mothers Never Told Us and Perfect Strangers. Her films have been in official selection for many major international film festivals.
In 2001, Preston was honoured by the New Zealand Arts Foundation, becoming New Zealand’s first Filmmaker Laureate.
The Big Idea Community Questions
Did you have many moments of deja vu throughout filming the relationships in your own family? - Fiona Fitchett
No Fiona, because the film is set before I was born. But working with Tony Barry as my father was pretty trippy. Not so much when we were working together in a shot, but when we were filming in my home. If I came into a room and he was just sitting there reading the paper in his costume and makeup, I would get a jolt.
What's your favourite decade? - Michelle Guest
The 60s - and yes, I do remember them. It's alcohol that is the forgetful drug.
Did you feel this was the dramatic bookend to the wonderful doco, "War Stories Our Mothers Never Told Us"? As I understand it, "Home By Christmas" had its genesis in the factual stories revealed by your mother in the doco. - Andrew Mark Bell
I interviewed my father Christmas/New Year 1990/91. Judith Fyfe interviewed my mother a year later. My father passed early 1992, so I always knew his story as I was making WAR STORIES. The dramatic interventions of the 'meanwhile in Greymouth' strand are based on family stories (eg. the baby in the washhouse) and Tui's oral history.
Hi Gaylene, Congratulations. Did your family stories contain all the drama needed for your film? How much of the story did you need to flesh out with your imagination? And did you find (if you did interview others) that other family members told slightly different versions of the same story when it came to reliving the past? - Lucia Ablett
I only worked from my father and mother's versions which are already quite different enough! The thing I love about oral history is how colourful and exclusive our memories are. Every teller makes the story their own and so there are large differences between various versions in my experience. As far as staging the dramatic interventions - I imagined them as colourfully as I could then added a bit of fantasy - eg the telegram telling my mother that my father was missing did not explode when she put it on the table - we still have it within the family!
Why did you cast your daughter in the role of her grandmother? What challenges did you both face?
My challenge as director was that I really like Chelsie's acting and always have, plus I think anything she does is breathtakingly marvelous. I am a complete follower. Therefore, I was worried that the critical faculty that directors must have on set, might be thrown off kilter. Fortunately in HOME BY CHRISTMAS the audience has agreed with me re Chelsie's performance of my young mother, Tui.
Do you think that film making in New Zealand is getting harder to source funding options? - Aaron Davis
It has never been easy to fund independent filmmaking. It's just as hard as ever. I have never been making the film that is easy to fund though. The financial deals have become more complicated but that goes for the whole world, not just NZ. The changes around the Screen Innovation Fund will impact on degree of difficulty getting started, but the NZFC has initiated a more low budget entry level approach.
Tena koe Gaylene: Ko Penehamine Netana-Patuawa taku ingoa. My name is Penehamine Netana-Patuawa. Ka pai on your mahi. I am a Film Maker. Last year I successfully made my 1st significant short movie...Te Whakapouri...The Darkening (check it out at www.tanatu.co.nz ). I have been developing my 1st Feature Film called A Dignified Life, which is based on the book I wrote about my Granddad's life and our relationship together. I plan to make it my 1st Feature film but, am finding it extremely hard to come up with pre-production financing. Do you have any PRACTIAL ideas that I can ACTION. Kia-ora. Naku noa na Pene.
Tena koe Penehamine. Goodonia for getting cracking with both the pen and the camera. What you probably need now is not strictly speaking pre-production money, but development money. Go onto the NZFC website and look at your options for applying for funding. I have often found that my ideas don't fit prevailing trends, so I have sometimes been successful in raising small amounts of development money from places that have a special interest in the subject matter. Look under stones. Ask your Iwi. Seek and ye shall find. And a 'no,' is not really a 'no,' it's just the first time you asked probably. Keep asking. Committees rotate.
The Big Idea Q&A
During what hours of the day do you feel most inspired?
Bath time.
How would a good friend describe your aesthetic or style?
Eclectic is an over used word these days don’t you think?
What aspect of your creative practice gives you the biggest thrill?
The leap into the unknown.
How does your environment affect your work?
As long as I am in the right room, I’m OK.
Do you like to look at the big picture or focus on the details?
Big picture, but filmmaking is a constant organizing of very small things to make the big picture.
What's your number one business tip for surviving (and thriving) in the creative industries?
Paddle your own canoe and don’t join anyone else’s Titanic.
Which of your projects to date has given you the most satisfaction?
Home By Christmas with Perfect Strangers and War Stories close behind.
Who or what has inspired you recently?
The scientist Paul Callighan.
If you could go back and choose a completely different career path to the one you've chosen, what would it be?
Randy Newman’s musical assistant.
What place is always with you, wherever you go?
The woolshed at East Takaka
What's the best way to listen to music, and why?
Sitting in the Wellington Town hall. Beautiful acoustics – and/or the woolshed at Takaka.
You are given a piece of string, a stick and some fabric. What do you make?
I would end up wanting to paint it and not getting around to it.
What's the best stress relief advice you've ever been given?
Pace yourself. Start climbing the mountain going at the speed you think you will be able to go when you reach the top.
What's great about today?
IT WAS SUNNY IN WELLINGTON AGAIN! and HOME BY CHRISTMAS is nearly launched and I really like what Gordon Adam, the distributor is doing to get it out there.
What’s your big idea for 2010?
Outlaw nuclear weapons – really.
And I have some questions for 2010. Re carbon trading - If they can work out the carbon footprint of an average cow’s fart, they must be able to work out the carbon footprint of an average bomb? And if they can, what is it? And does it count on the international ledger?
And why is GST a so much better tax, than a financial transactions tax? And why didn’t the tax ‘think tank’ think about that?
And why does war and global warming, never get discussed at the same time on the radio or in the newspaper? And why do most journalists not ask why enough? And why do we all think we won’t die yet we know we will?
Comments
22 April 2010 - 16:22 PM
Thanks for your questions for Gaylene Preston, her answers are in the Q&A article above.
Andrew Mark Bell and Fiona Fitchett have both won double-passes to see Home By Christmas.
did you have many moments of dejavu throughout filming the relationships in your own family?
What's your favourite decade?
Do you think that film making in New Zealand is getting harder to source funding options?
Did you feel this was the dramatic bookend to the wonderful doco, "War Stories Our Mothers Never Told Us"? As I understand it, "Home By Christmas" had its genesis in the factual stories revealed by your mother in the doco.
Hi Gaylene,
Congratulations. Did your family stories contain all the drama needed for your film? How much of the story did you need to flesh out with your imagination? And did you find (if you did interview others) that other family members told slightly different versions of the same story when it came to reliving the past?
Cheers.
Were you tempted to make a film about Ed's POW camp escape?