Jason Gann

"Wilfred is a story about a dog fighting for the affections of his 'owner'. It all started when a guy we knew told us about his experience going home with a girl after a concert. He walked into her place and found a dog sitting on a lounge chair, looking at him as if to say, "What are you intending to do with my missus?" I started playing around with the idea and improvising as a dog. We wrote it down and it became the script for the short film called Wilfred.

We did the shoot within the week, entered it in Tropfest, and it took off from there. A few months later we were taking it to festivals all over the world. I didn't create Wilfred, he created himself. Everywhere I went I became aware of dogs. They showed me what Wilfred was about. I remember one afternoon while we were shooting the short film. We took a break to drive to the pub. We pulled up next to another car and there, in the back seat, was a dog looking at me really hard. It felt like he was saying, "You are our voice. Get our message out there."

I saw that as a sign that we were doing something pretty special. It's funny, just after we made Wilfred I had a girlfriend who had a dog. He would sleep on my girlfriend's bed in between us and growl every time I moved. Maybe he had seen the movie! On a more serious note, I'm totally against animal cruelty. When you go shopping check the brands that you buy to make sure that animals aren't getting hurt to make a product that you enjoy."