Private company

Dream Quest Images

Dream Quest Images, later known as The Secret Lab, was an American visual effects company, co-founded in 1979 by Hoyt Yeatman, Scott Squires, Ohio native Rocco Gioffre, Fred Iguchi, Tom Hollister and.1

Last updated Oct 16, 2026.

Overview

1982Founded1
  • Industryspecial effects1
  • HeadquartersSimi Valley1

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Dream Quest Images, later known as The Secret Lab, was an American visual effects company, co-founded in 1979 by Hoyt Yeatman, Scott Squires, Ohio native Rocco Gioffre, Fred Iguchi, Tom Hollister and Bob Hollister.2

How it started

History

After early piecemeal work on Escape from New York, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, and One From the Heart, Dream Quest expanded operations and earned back-to-back visual effects Oscars for work on The Abyss and Total Recall.

In 1996, Dream Quest was purchased by The Walt Disney Company. While Disney began development on Dinosaur, they decided to fold Dream Quest into Walt Disney Feature Animation and subsequently renamed it "The Secret Lab" in 1999.

After The Secret Lab did the visuals of the 2000 animated film Dinosaur, a shuttering process begun, started by cancelling the animated film the studio was doing with Walt Disney Feature Animation, Wildlife. The Secret Lab closed its doors in 2001, but it only shut down once its artists finished their work on Reign of Fire and Kangaroo Jack.

From Wikipedia’s article on Dream Quest Images, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.2

Timeline

  1. 2001Dissolved Dissolved1
  2. 1982Founded Founded1

Sources

The numbers on this page point here. Each one links to the record it came from.

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