{"id":22116,"date":"2026-01-12T16:05:33","date_gmt":"2026-01-12T21:05:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/?p=22116"},"modified":"2026-01-12T16:10:32","modified_gmt":"2026-01-12T21:10:32","slug":"how-one-disney-artist-turned-loss-into-a-short-film","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/2026\/01\/how-one-disney-artist-turned-loss-into-a-short-film.html","title":{"rendered":"How One Disney Artist Turned Loss Into a Short Film"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Left: Disney | Right: Adobe Stock<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Disney artistic director Malcon Pierce faced a devastating loss. In 2016 while he was working on Moana<\/em>, he and his wife were expecting a baby boy, Cooper. But complications during the pregnancy resulted in Cooper\u2019s death. \u201cAnd this reset my wife and I in a very big way,\u201d Pierce told Deadline<\/em><\/a>. \u201cI was just thinking about grief as this incredibly big and nearly impossible thing to get over.\u201d It was a loss that crushed Pierce as he found himself trying to avoid facing his grief. \u201c\u00a0It was this idea that if I shut out this loss, I\u2019d get better, and when I\u2019m better, I\u2019ll be able to talk about it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

With the help of his wife, Pierce was able to face the grief and he began to look at it with his artistic eye. He then received inspiration from and infant loss group he and his wife attended. \u201cThere were a lot of people talking about how they were triggered by watching movies featuring pregnant characters. And there was a lot of conversation about grief within couples who deal with the situation differently \u2014 either one of you wants to talk about the issue, or you don\u2019t.\u201d Through his group, Pierce realized that infant loss was a reality for many couples and wanted to give something to people going through that loss.<\/p>\n

What resulted was Pierce\u2019s Oscar-qualifying short, \u201cVersa.\u201d It\u2019s a six-minute short without dialogue, reflecting the difficulty of wording the pain of the loss. Yet the images are powerful as a celestial couple tries to pull themselves from despair after pregnancy loss. And while he hoped it could be a help to other parents experiencing a similar loss, Pierce found healing for himself. \u201cRight after we lost our son, I was coming to work, I didn\u2019t want to talk about it and was hiding all these scars,\u201d he said. \u201cThen, after working through understanding and the power of acceptance, I started to look at it like, I still have a relationship with Cooper. It\u2019s different than what I expected, but I think about him all the time, and he\u2019s with me all the time.\u201d His view on grief also changed. \u201cI had this idea that you could have a great loss and go through the\u00a0steps of grief, and then you could start the next chapter. But that\u2019s not true,\u201d he said. \u201cWhat we learned is that grief is something that you learn to have a relationship with and you carry it with you. Over time, it becomes easier to carry, but it can also be very heavy, so I wanted to show this idea of wearing your scars proudly.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Disney artistic director Malcon Pierce faced a devastating loss. In 2016 while he was working on Moana, he and his wife were expecting a baby boy, Cooper. But complications during the pregnancy resulted in Cooper\u2019s death. \u201cAnd this reset my wife and I in a very big way,\u201d Pierce told Deadline. \u201cI was just thinking…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":516,"featured_media":22119,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-inspiring-messages"],"yoast_head":"\nHow One Disney Artist Turned Loss Into a Short Film<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Disney artist Malcon Pierce turns the grief of infant loss into healing through his Oscar-qualifying short film \u201cVersa.\u201d\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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