Dream Quest Images

Mars, Gotham City, a sunken nuclear sub and a colonized moon--all were created and destroyed in a black-draped, 54-by-83-foot studio at Dream Quest Images. Now a miniature asteroid city stands there, glowing with tiny yellow lights, a symbol of the Simi Valley company's attempts to stay afloat in the increasingly stormy world of movie special effects.

Dream Quest Images of Simi Valley, two-time Academy Award-winning creator that does visual effects for movies and television, announced last week that it is working on its first interactive CD-ROM video game. The project is a joint effort with Knowledge Adventure Inc. of La Crescenta, a developer of multimedia software.

Dream Quest Images of Simi Valley, two-time Academy Award-winning creator that does visual effects for movies and television, announced last week that it is working on its first interactive CD-ROM video game. The project is a joint effort with Knowledge Adventure Inc. of La Crescenta, a developer of multimedia software.

Mars, Gotham City, a sunken nuclear sub and a colonized moon--all were created and destroyed in a black-draped, 54-by-83-foot studio at Dream Quest Images. Now a miniature asteroid city stands there, glowing with tiny yellow lights, a symbol of the Simi Valley company's attempts to stay afloat in the increasingly stormy world of movie special effects.

"I really truthfully wish there was no business aspect to it," said Hoyt Yeatman, talking about Dream Quest Images, the Simi Valley motion picture special effects company he owns with two partners. The boyish, 35-year-old special effects artist, wearing jeans and a loose-collared shirt, bubbles over with excitement when he talks about creating the illusion that models hanging on wires are really submarines in the deep, but not so much when the topic is balance sheets.

After completing its last project, "Mission to Mars," the special-effects company Dream Quest Images has departed Simi Valley for Burbank. The Walt Disney Co., which owns Dream Quest Images, wants most of its creative teams--visual-effects artists and producers--in Burbank to work under a new digital special-effects unit. Most of the Dream Quest workers left a month ago.

Dream Quest Images Inc. has decided not to leave Simi Valley in December, but to stay in the city for at least another year while the special effects studio and its new parent firm, the Walt Disney Co., search for digs in Burbank. "We're really keeping our options open," said Mary Reardon, a spokeswoman for the Oscar-winning movie special effects studio. "We may be here for a while. Since spring, we have pretty much doubled our staff."

"I really truthfully wish there was no business aspect to it," said Hoyt Yeatman, talking about Dream Quest Images, the Simi Valley motion picture special effects company he owns with two partners. The boyish, 35-year-old special effects artist, wearing jeans and a loose-collared shirt, bubbles over with excitement when he talks about creating the illusion that models hanging on wires are really submarines in the deep, but not so much when the topic is balance sheets.

Artists and technicians who work at Ventura County's only special effects company--creating spaceships, laser beams and crumbling foam mountains--have won one of the movie industry's most prestigious awards. The director of effects photography for Dream Quest Images in Simi Valley will receive an Academy Award next month for his work creating the Martian landscape in the futuristic thriller "Total Recall."