Dana Dorian was born in Malaysia while his parents worked in the Peace Corps and spent most of his life growing up in a suburb of New York City before moving to Scotland in 1994 where he received a masters of Fine Art at Duncan of Jordanstone School of Art in Dundee. On graduating, he joined Digital Animations as an animator working extensively in character creation and storytelling.

Soon after he helped set up Glasgow based Axis Animation. While at Axis he has directed several award winning commercials and broadcast projects including the BAFTA winning animated series Colin and Cumberland made for the BBC.

Fetch was originally written as a pilot episode for the Colin and Cumberland series, which was created to promote the indigenous languages of Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. After starting a handful of episodes BBC Education decided to change the general content of the series, which meant the episodes that were started needed to be cut. After the series was completed Dana asked the BBC for permission to complete and screen the original episodes at various film festivals as short films. The BBC kindly agreed and Axis Animation completed Fetch and premiered it at the Edinburgh film festival in August 2006.

Fetch has been screened at over 100 film festivals around the world, and has won several awards, most notably the Krakow Film Festival Audience Award for best international film and the BAFTA Scotland award for best animation.

It's crazy to think that although I have directed several TV commercials, game cinematics and a few animated sequences for broadcast projects I haven't until now made a short film. It's not that I haven't wanted to make a short. In fact the opposite is true. Creating films and storytelling was a key factor in why I got into the industry.

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I came from a painting background so I missed out on the opportunity to make a student short and I recommend that every animation student out there make the most of their time at school because it really is a once in a life time opportunity. It's easy for someone to say, "If you really want to do it you should make time." But in the real world it's often not that simple, especially when you have a family that needs your support and attention.

I consider myself very lucky to get the chance to create Fetch. It started when the BBC approached my company, Axis Animation with an open pitch for Colin and Cumberland, a new animated series for BBC Education. After a month of throwing around ideas and a lot of hard work we won the contract.

At the start of the project I was given the opportunity to write some great one-minute episodes but ultimately all of them were cut from the series as the dynamic between the two main characters changed from the original brief to meet the BBC requirements for the series. The main difference being that Cumberland was now able to speak.

"although I have directed several TV commercials, game cinematics and a few animated sequences for broadcast projects I haven't until now made a short film. It's not that I haven't wanted to make a short. In fact the opposite is true." --Dana Dorian

I felt there was a lot of potential in the original scripts and decided that I couldn't let them waste away on a shelf. After the series was finished I approached the BBC and asked for permission to complete the episodes and screen them at film festivals. They kindly agreed.

Because all the assets had already been created for the series the cost for completing Fetch was minimal and within three weeks it was ready to enter the festival market. The response to Fetch has been astounding.

It's been an exciting time for me, and I've learned a lot about film festivals, which has left me wanting to make more shorts. There are a few more Colin and Cumberland scripts I'd like to finish, so hopefully everyone will be seeing more of Colin and his uncooperative dog in the future.

       --Dana Dorian, AUG 2007