Special Effects Studio Renews Its Lease

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.”

Dream Quest originally planned to move some of its operations to Burbank to be closer to Disney’s home studios when the entertainment giant bought the smaller studio last spring.

But Dream Quest has since renewed its lease and expanded its work space to make room for a staff of model makers and computer-graphics artists now numbering about 200, Reardon said.

Among the firm’s seven projects are visual effects for “The Absent Minded Professor,” with Robin Williams; Martin Scorsese’s “Kundin,” about the Dalai Lama; a thriller about a planeload of prisoners called “Con Air”; and the mixed live/animated film “George of the Jungle.”

Assistant City Manager Don Penman said, “We’re obviously very pleased they’re to remain in the community, at least for that period of time. We’re hopeful it’ll be a little longer.”

Reardon said the Dream Quest workers have grown quite attached to their studios at the west end of Simi Valley.

“When the sun sets every evening, we all gather at the west windows, and we stand. And we get real quiet,” she said. “Then we go back to work. Sometimes we get wistful about it when we contemplate moving to the grittier parts of Burbank.”