The Making of Home by Christmas

Short Film (Full Length) – 2010

In Gaylene Preston's War Stories, her mother Tui revealed that she had fallen for another man while her husband was off at war. In Home by Christmas, inspired by an audio interview with her father Ed, Preston looks again at her parents' life during wartime. In this behind-the-scenes doco, veteran actor Tony Barry talks about the acting techniques which allowed him to "be, rather than play, Ed"; Preston reveals that Barry's distinctive voice is almost a carbon copy of her father's; and Chelsie Preston Crayford talks about portraying her own grandmother.

As a little girl there were always three times: there was before the war, there was after the war, and there was another time that was almost like a secret place, called during the war. So Home by Christmas is part of an investigation that I’ve been making for a very long time.
– Gaylene Preston