Gergely Takács – CEO / Visual Effects Supervisor & Producer, Spectral Studios
What was the catalyst in starting your own company?
I’ve been a VFX supervisor for many years on international projects shooting in Hungary and have met some incredible artists who were eager to collaborate. We soon formed a small team of freelancers and worked together on our first two shows. That’s how Spectral Studios began. We eventually decided to open our own office, in downtown Budapest, creating a space where we could come together, discuss technologies, find solutions, and share our passion. In the early days, there were just seven of us, including my mom, who was our office manager.
Spectral Studios recently celebrated its 5th birthday. At first we recreated live environments in 3D with the help of some technologies that are based on 3D scanning. During this time I learned a lot from my colleagues and friends from Weta FX and it was really the first time I really got to know about visual special effects. I was amazed by the equipment used and the workflow they were creating.
Spectral Studios featuring digital artwork by Android Jones
Our first jobs were environment and props scanning, later on we moved onto character scanning and building scanning rigs. We mainly worked on foreign service productions where soon we were able to deliver high quality services. We built these relationships over the years and soon we were also asked to do the post work.
Who or what helped you the most in getting started?
I was working as a VFX Data Wrangler on the National Geographic documentary series ‘Year Million’ when the VFX Supervisor suddenly became unavailable. The Producer came up to me and said, “Congratulations, you’re now the supervisor,” and before I could blink, the director and cameraman were already firing questions at me. Despite the initial shock, I realized I knew the answers thanks to my experience at Weta. I later reviewed the entire project, refined the processes, and developed a solid workflow with the creative team, which led to a great collaboration.
One of the first major projects after that was Ari Aster’s Midsommar, where I served as the on-set VFX supervisor and later as the overall VFX supervisor. In fact, Spectral Studios was founded at that time to meet some of the show’s needs—what I consider milestone zero for us. Midsommar was instrumental in our journey and taught us the full life cycle of a movie, from on-set VFX to final post-production. Without a dedicated VFX producer, I took on that role as well, managing workflows and contracts with various VFX companies from Hungary, England, Norway, New York and New Zealand.
Were there any big challenges in the early set up days and how did you overcome that?
Well, starting and running a company in general as we have grown to the size we are today in a relatively short period of time is probably more demanding than I ever thought. Most of the challenges that I have seen are not even visual effects related as much as it has to do with accounting, budgeting, running the facility, and many more.
“As CEO, the most important aspect for me about starting a company has always been about the people entering this place and my relationship with them. Since we spend so much time together, I believe it’s crucial to create a friendly atmosphere where everyone feels valued and enjoys coming in every day.”
I’m proud of the relationships we’ve built here, and my main goal is to further foster a space where these incredible and talented individuals truly enjoy their time with us.
Recent Spectral Studios projects include:
What has starting your own company meant for your own self development?
My family has always been obsessed with movies, my mom, as mentioned, now works at the studio, but before that she was a project manager at the Polish Institute in Budapest where she was responsible for organizing cultural events including Polish Film weeks every year, so I was introduced to independent art cinema at a young age. My father, a cameraman, also passed down his love for film and photography to me quite early on. Once, he gave me a book on special effects, which explained how to create explosions, destroy cars, and even revealed some visual tricks from Terminator—a movie I loved. I was hooked and knew I had found my path.
With my skills in photography and my father encouraging me to study IT, I realized visual effects combined both worlds. I feel incredibly fortunate to have followed my dreams, and that I get to work in film and was even able to start my own company. It’s a huge responsibility but it has been the most fulfilling ride without a doubt.
Spectral Studios crew summer party
If you could have done anything different in the early days of setting up your company, what would it be?
I wouldn’t change much really. I’m truly happy with how everything turned out. It’s rare to look back on your decisions without any regrets, and I feel fortunate to be in that position.
What has been the biggest highlight so far? Either for you or Spectral?
I would say there are certain highlight projects that influenced my journey and contributed to where I am today.
“Obviously the first show that I worked on called Spectral (major clue for our company name 🙂 ) was the biggest influence for me. This is where I understood what was going on in the world of filmmaking, what visual effects were and the realization that this is what I want to do for the rest of my life!”
I already mentioned Midsommar, which was the first project where I was taking the show till the end and understood every step and every problem that could happen in the life cycle of a movie. This one had a huge impact on me as it was the first project where a lot of decisions and responsibilities lay with me, which of course was challenging, but at the same time a very rewarding project to have worked on.
Our current project though, has to be the biggest highlight. We have been working on ‘Rise of the Raven‘ (produced by Executive Producer, Robert Lantos and his Serendipity Point Films, German Beta Film and many others), for three years now, and it is an extremely huge project for us. Spectral Studios has been overseeing and producing the VFX production of the 10-episode series set in the 15th century from pre-production, to on-set supervision, through to post-production.
The series follows Janos Hunyadi, who in 1456 defeated a much larger Ottoman army at the Battle of Nandorfehervar (now Belgrade, Serbia). From the script, it was clear this would be an ambitious, epic project, full of battles, intrigue, and politics.
“The 15th-century setting required extensive VFX, with around 1,400 shots managed by five vendors, led by Spectral Studios.”
The first VFX-heavy teaser was released recently, and episode one premiered at Mipcom in Cannes.
The scale of the show is already visible, with large set extensions, effects, and massive Ottoman army crowds. I’m incredibly proud of the team as the VFX continues to elevate the show.
Spectral Studios attended the ‘Rise of the Raven’ premiere, for which they provided VFX.
What is the VFX industry like in Hungary, are there many studios there? Current tax incentives? Unique perspectives? Effects from the strikes/reduction in work?
Hungary has extremely good tax rebates of up to 37.5%. This is the number one reason why the big studios come here to shoot their blockbusters, because of the extensive infrastructure of several film studios, backlots and Budapest’s unique architecture that can stand in for most cities in the world, and the know-how and skilled crew that has been building up here. From our perspective what’s also important is that the rebate can also be used for entire post-production pipelines even if the project was not shot in Hungary.
In terms of how the industry is shifting, the country has definitely felt the effects of last year’s strikes like everywhere else and at least in the first half of the year seen projects being delayed.
“As for the rest of 2024 and early 2025 as far as we can see, most studios are booked out and many new feature films and TV projects of streamers started shooting during the summer.”
For VFX specifically, there aren’t many large visual effects studios in Hungary and Central Europe, but what we have been seeing is that many aspiring artists from the region who left their home countries for opportunities in North America in the last 10 to 15 years are now reaching a stage in their lives where they want to settle down, start a family and be closer to their relatives, many are returning to Central and Eastern Europe, bringing valuable experience from major studios and seeking flexible work in their time zone. This has been great news for us as these are the artists who are also looking for more freedom when it comes to shaping the pipeline, shaping the workflow, shaping the system. Spectral Studios has been in a lucky position to be able to offer this freedom and be able to grow with them. So, Budapest, being in Central Europe, I think, has a very incredible proposition, a very good offer to anyone looking for something new, something fresh.
As for the state of the VFX job market in general, what I can tell is there are a lot of people who are applying to us. This probably sadly also means that some of them are struggling to find a steady job. We are seeing a big fluctuation in the big studios. Also a lot of studios push people to be on the freelance side, but that means irregular work for the artists which may not be sustainable when you have a family. Hard to say if this would stabilize any time soon.
What’s next for you/your company?
Being based in Central Europe gives us access to both Hollywood projects and local and European ones, making us a sort of gateway between East and West. With so many opportunities available, I feel positive that we can pursue our ambitions and hope that more and more exciting projects will find us.
As for me, I am looking forward to the time when we delivered all of ‘Rise of the Raven’ and can finally rest and have more family time, read and catch up with the piles of books that have been waiting for me.