The glamour of Hollywood may have been missing — he helped make the low-budget animated film in his mother's garage — but the result was the same.

Simi Valley resident David Kim has co-directed a Christmas movie that is now available at national chain stores such as Blockbuster, Wal-Mart and Barnes & Noble.

It's a chance that many film students only dream about. But the self-taught animator got that chance and has made his directorial debut with the newly released "Elf Bowling: The Great North Pole Elf Strike."

"It was a way to get into the business, and it all started out in a Simi Valley garage," said Kim, who was even visited by Disney animators at the house.

The movie, produced by Filmbrokers International, is being distributed by Screen Media Films through Universal Studios Home Entertainment. It is based on a popular online game called "Elf Bowling," which has players trying to knock down elves with a bowling ball as they mutter taunts.

The storyline for the movie has Santa on a madcap adventure in Fiji, where he must rescue his elves from his scheming brother Dingle. The movie includes the voice of Tom Kenny, who also is the voice behind SpongeBob SquarePants.

Kim, a longtime Simi Valley resident, was offered the chance to work on the movie when he was a student studying film editing at the Academy of Arts University in San Francisco.

He previously worked as a production assistant and on animation for music videos by artists such as Missy Elliott and TLC.

Since the movie was made, Kim has worked as a production coordinator on "The Simpsons Movie" and "The Golden Compass"; he currently works in production at a large visual effects company in Los Angeles.

"I always wanted to work in the movie industry, so this was an opportunity I couldn't refuse," said Kim, who left school and traveled to countries such as Fiji and South Korea to work on the movie.

Kim became co-director of the movie and was in charge of many aspects of production, including making storyboards, designing characters and sets, editing story reel and adding the recorded voices.

Eventually work on the movie moved to the United States and right into his mother's garage, which provided enough space for his work.

Kim spent most of his time there working on his computer, going through thousands of drawings and coordinating them with sound.

"I would spend hours there, and all the artists met there. She (his mother) thought it was a little crazy that these Hollywood types were meeting there, but she didn't mind. She saw I was doing something that I loved, so she was very supportive," Kim said.

At one point, he even danced in a special sensor suit that provided lifelike motion to the characters during musical sequences in the movie.

"The neighbors probably thought it was so strange. But hopefully now they'll understand what we were really doing in there — nothing illegal," he said with a laugh.