Long-time Walt Disney animator Malcon Pierce’s animated short “Versa” is a deeply personal story. The animated short, playing at Animation In Film this weekend, follows a young couple looking to start a family who experience a gamut of emotions—from grief and loss to ultimate joy—as they embark on an ethereal, abstract and imaginative cosmic dance of life.
During the making of “Moana,” Pierce and his wife Keely lost their infant son, Cooper. In grieving their loss, Pierce was inspired to tell their story. Their son’s baby shower theme revolved around stars, and his mother-in-law gifted the couple a crystal star, which was placed in a kitchen window.
“Every morning we’d come downstairs, all these little rainbows would be spread around the house from the little star, and it became a way of remembering Cooper and keeping him close to us,” says Pierce.
With visual storytelling serving as a way to work through his loss and grief, Pierce found strength in his artwork. Eventually, he soft-pitched the idea to Disney Animation’s Chief Creative Officer Jennifer Lee with a slideshow of concepts. As the two discussed the idea over coffee, Pierce recalls Lee being supportive but advising him to think about the character’s point of view, “She said, ‘You should talk to Paul Felix. He’s one of our amazing artists and is interested in astrology.’”
With that, Felix took Pierce’s ideas to the next level by presenting seven paintings inspired by the slideshow. “He brought so much amazing visuals to that early development cycle,” says Pierce.
“Versa” is set to music and dance, including an ice dance that required choreographers to help thread the story together. The challenge was to portray a journey of love, loss, grief, and healing through choreography and without dialogue.
As Pierce was searching for inspiration, he thought about ice dancing and skating. While learning about the art form, he realized it was perfect for his story. “That allowed us to free up this idea of these characters potentially being able to be highly kinetic but still emote in a very sensitive way. Whereas when I was looking at dance, I found that if they stopped, they were stuck to the earth.”
Pierce turned to ice skaters and choreographers Katherine Hill and Ben Agosto, who brought their skills to the table, adding authenticity to the animation. They navigated how choreography and ice dancing combined could show the push and pull between the two parents.
“There’s a shot where the dad skates around the mom and puts his head to listen to their baby in the belly and gets kicked. In the storyboards, we had the dad coming up and kneeling down, but Ben and Kat were like, ‘What if Dad skates around Mom?’ So we were starting to uncover these really incredible nuances,” says Pierce.
The storytelling through ice skating taught Pierce a different process of narrative building and allowed him to step into someone else’s world to help tell the story he wanted.
Composer Haim Mazar used a 69-piece orchestra to create a score that grows with the characters. “He used ‘90s synth, but it’s also big and orchestral with full strings and horns.” Pierce says they did at least three passes before landing on the right emotional beats. It ultimately came together as they were animating “Versa,” with the music pulling on the emotions of the parents.
Further inspiration came from “Frozen 2” co-director Chris Buck, who suggested the book “Permission to Mourn.” A line in the book about how grief can split a person open resonated with Pierce. “I had always wanted to have these characters transform into a newer version of themselves. I think a lot of times when we think about characters having this devastation in their life, there’s an idea that you heal from it, and when you heal, you’re fixed. I feel like what I’ve learned is that grief, those steps, are a way for you to have a relationship with grief and to be able to keep those that you’ve lost much closer.”
Pierce admits he was doing the opposite after Cooper’s passing, not keeping him close. When he was finally able to go into Cooper’s nursery after a long time of avoiding it, Pierce said, “I went in and split open. I was forced to face it. But there was a photo that we took after that where Keely and I are embracing each other and we’re smiling, and it’s this beautiful color photo.”
Facing that moment gave Pierce strength and showed how he and his wife were coming together after being split apart by their grief—and then healing because they had grown.
“That’s where we got the idea of incorporating the Japanese art of Kintsugi, this beautiful art where they fill cracks in pottery with gold. It’s symbolic.” He adds, “That was something that we really worked hard on—this idea of earning a relationship with grief and finding hope through the hard stuff.”
Pierce also shares that Cooper’s name appears in the “Moana” credits as a production baby, except it has a star next to it.
“I like to say that that star has been my North Star for all of this, and still to this day.”
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