A Word of Thanks I know that the Annie Awards have been much on our minds and blog as of late but I would like to go back to the day before the Annie Awards and talk about the Afternoon of Remembrance. I want to talk about the speech by Mark Pudleiner. But this is not really just about Mark or his wife Shannon Scudder-Pudleiner who we honored last Saturday, it is about the reason that Mark came to the Afternoon of Remembrance, it is about the Animation Community, the Animation family.

Shannon died of cancer in June leaving her husband and small children. It had to be hard for Mark to come and talk to us about this open wound but it was obvious from his first word that he was there for a reason, he needed to be there to thank the people in his animation family for all of their support during his ordeal.

Mark is a Disney animator and Shannon was an editor before they had children. During Shannon`s illness Mark`s fellow employees, many of them facing layoffs, donated 75 vacation and sick days to Mark so that he could be with his wife and family. The higher ups at Disney arranged to move computer equipment into his home (an unheard of thing in the studios) and hooked him up to the network so that he could work from home and be with his wife and sons. His boss told him not to worry, to just take care of his home life. His animation family made it possible.

Mark was overwhelmed by this kindness of his animation family, and quit frankly so am I. But I wasn`t surprised. I feel honored to be about to pass on Mark`s thanks to his follow members in the animation community.
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