00:07Malkin Pearce
00:08My name is Malkin Pearce. I'm the director of Versa.
00:13I wanted to be an animator my whole life.
00:16I just wanted to work for Disney and make movies.
00:20I was an animation supervisor on Moana.
00:23The first sequence in a production was the sequence with toddler Moana going down to the ocean.
00:29And over the course of this period, my wife and I were expecting our son.
00:37And there was an unfortunate complication and we ended up losing our son.
00:41His name was Cooper on his birthday on that day.
00:47I remember the first day coming back to work and I decided that I'm going to distract myself mentally
00:52and just, you know, keep myself super occupied like everything's fine.
00:57And that was the thing that was like, man, I'm so not fine.
01:05I had never gone into the nursery. I'd never been able to.
01:08My wife, Keely, she was the opposite.
01:11She was spending time in there. She would read in there.
01:13She was just totally living in this moment and really connecting in a really healthy way.
01:20She has a photography background. So she says, I think it's important that we capture sort of this moment with
01:27our grieving process.
01:29And she took a series of photos that became sort of the thematic of the short.
01:35It's a very personal story and, you know, it's scary putting that out there.
01:41But I've found it more empowering to open up and share than try to avoid it.
01:49And through this project, Keely and I were so humbled by the support from all of our friends and family
01:56and the studio, you know, it was amazing.
01:58She's really the strength behind a lot of it and really helped me see and still does.
02:04That really was the nucleus of the film that became Versa.
02:44Thank you so much.
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