To get into the mindset of a real beaver, John Cody Kim \u2013 a Langley Fine Arts School alumnus \u2013 did what any Disney animator would do.<\/p>\n
The 32-year-old climbed into a deserted beaver lodge, settled in for a while, and checked out what he described as a somewhat palatial habitat.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was pretty comfy in there. I could fall asleep if I wanted,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
What better way to understand the main characters that Kim was helping bring to life for Disney\u2019s Pixar latest animated movie, \u201cHoppers.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHoppers,\u201d which revolves around beavers and a number of their wildlife friends, hit the screen Friday, March 6. That\u2019s the same day Kim shared with the Langley Advance Times a bit about himself and his involvement in bringing that film to life.<\/p>\n
Kim, who was born in Vancouver and grew up in Walnut Grove for 11 years, has since moved around the continent a lot for education and work. He\u2019s now settled close to work in the San Francisco Bay area, but still considers Langley his home.<\/p>\n
\u201cLangley Fine Arts is really where it allowed me to kind of pursue filmmaking and just art, and that\u2019s where I really was able to get into animation. And then, basically from there, I was accepted into Cal Arts (California Institute of the Arts),\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He was initially drawn to character animation \u2013 and Pixar in particular \u2013 after seeing the movie, \u201cUp.\u201d He knew for certain that\u2019s what he wanted to do.<\/p>\n
At Cal Arts, he quickly realized that his passion and love of filmmaking and animation was best realized through storytelling \u2013 as a story artist, taking the script and visualizing in a series of drawings (almost like comic strips) how that story should unfold.<\/p>\n
Prior to Pixar, Kim began his career as a story artist at Blue Sky Animation in New York \u2013 working on projects such as \u201cSpies in Disguise\u201d (2019) and \u201cNimona\u201d (2023).<\/p>\n
Kim then started at Pixar as a story artist in spring 2021 \u2013 during COVID \u2013 joining the \u201cHoppers\u201d team the moment he was hired. He first worked on it as a story lead and was then promoted to story supervisor \u2013 overseeing the story department and acting as part maestro and part architect to transform the script into a visual blueprint that guides every department from lighting and animation to voice acting and directing. He held that role until the movie was finished in late 2025.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s like a blueprint, like when you\u2019re building a house,\u201d Kim elaborated. \u201cWhat story artists do is basically make blueprints before we actually start to build the house.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019d be in there for hours, just coming up with ideas,\u201d Kim explained. \u201cAnd we\u2019d put them up on the wall and see what sticks\u2026 what\u2019s memorable\u2026 We would explore. We would come up with characters\u2026 Rather than just pitching ideas verbally, the moment you draw them, it becomes very real,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
For \u201cHoppers,\u201d it took literally thousands of idea exchanges over several years to bring it all together.<\/p>\n
He calls the completion of this storyline a rollercoaster ride, that brings together a story with many unexpected twists and turns.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut it was a really fun, collaborative process,\u201d he said of creating \u201cHoppers.\u201d<\/p>\n
And now he\u2019s almost as excited seeing the film finally reach the theatres.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m starting to hear a real buzz,\u201d he added. \u201cI\u2019m so happy to hear the movie is being well received.\u201d<\/p>\n
While Kim admits he was feeling a lot of anxiety leading up to its release, he is thrilled to not only help give viewers some much needed laughs, but help present a fresh premise for a movie, and most of all \u2013 on a personal note \u2013 paint beavers in a positive light.<\/p>\n
In Disney and Pixar\u2019s all-new feature film \u201cHoppers,\u201d scientists have discovered how to \u201chop\u201d human consciousness into lifelike robotic animals, allowing people to communicate with animals as animals. The adventure introduces Mabel, an animal lover who seizes an opportunity to use the technology, uncovering mysteries within the animal world that are beyond anything she could have imagined.<\/p>\n
Kim loves that it\u2019s primarily a story about beavers, an animal which is synonymous with Canada. And recognizing that people don\u2019t know much about the animal, he\u2019s psyched to be part of changing that.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt puts beavers in a really big spotlight,\u201d said Kim, who believes very little is know about what he calls \u201camazing ecosystem engineers,\u201d that have an incredibly powerful and positive impact on nature.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m really excited for the world to learn about that,\u201d he said, elaborating more on his own education, which included extensive research and a visit to an old beaver home in Yellowstone National Park four years ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was just big enough for me to squeeze in,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Kim was the only one on the team willing to go inside the beaver lodge. He recalled how the well-crafted habitat featured a series of various rooms set up inside that mirror human homes.<\/p>\n
Kim said he has pulled a lot of the characters and their actions from his personal experiences at the lodge and as a kid growing up outdoors in nature in Langley \u2013 be it building forts in a ravine in his Walnut Grove backyard, or being out snowboarding, camping, or rock climbing and interacting with nature.<\/p>\n
\u201cI remember growing up and going camping. In the early mornings, next to the Fraser River, you\u2019d get this thin layer of fog. And I still fondly remember as a little kid seeing this like log floating down the river, and my dad was like \u2018that\u2019s not a log, that\u2019s a beaver.\u2019 And I remember thinking that was really, really cool. And so working on this movie reminded me a lot of home,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you watch [Hoppers], there\u2019s going to be a lot of laughs, there\u2019s going to be a lot of goofyness. It\u2019s a wild ride. But there\u2019s surprisingly also a lot of heart to the movie,\u201d Kim concluded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"To get into the mindset of a real beaver, John Cody Kim \u2013 a Langley Fine Arts School…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":525993,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194299],"tags":[49,48,87674],"class_list":{"0":"post-525992","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-surrey","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-surrey"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/525992","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=525992"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/525992\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/525993"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=525992"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=525992"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=525992"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}