Balázs Drenkovics is our visual effects supervisor, who has worked on numerous globally successful projects. He joined Ionart in 2017. He was nominated for both the Visual Effects Oscar and the BAFTA Film Award for his work on Iron Man 3. We invited him for an interview to talk about his life, work, and views on design.
I started off doing 3D modeling at a small Hungarian company in Budapest. We made games for Nintendo consoles (Tomb Raider: Legend, Hot Wheels). Then I got a job in the movie business, where I worked on some low-budget animation films and series. After that, I managed to get into the commercial and game cinematic business, where I gained a lot of practical knowledge. It was at that time I got a job offer from Trixter, and MPC Vancouver. Afterwards I was managing the effects department of Digic Pictures, where we made a lot of cinematic game trailers including The Witcher 3 and Call of Duty. The past three years I have been a part of the Ionart team as co-owner and vfx supervisor.
Project Involvement
The biggest project I was involved in were Avengers: Age of Ultron and Iron Man 3 at Trixter as the Lead Visual Effects Technical Director. Trixter is a medium sized company based in Munich and Berlin, but I spent two and a half years in their office. During that time I worked on several famous Marvel movies, such as Iron Man and Captain America. I took part in the production of White House Down.When I joined Trixter, the team had already started working on Iron Man 3. Before joining the project, I had only had experience in the games and commercial business, so movies were totally new for me. We only had six weeks for the connecting sequence. That was the first time when Marvel showed Iron Man’s new armor. The design and model was created by the Trixter art department. My main role on this project was to work on Iron Man’s jet system and other parts’ effects. The six weeks of the project was challenging, but I received a contract extension afterwards, and I stayed a little while longer.
