Profile · Updated October 2026
Balazs Kiss — CG Supervisor and Lighting Supervisor in high-end VFX
Two decades of lighting shots on Academy Award-winning films at Weta FX, MPC, Framestore and ReDefine / DNEG — and AAA games in Unreal Engine.
Balazs Kiss is a Hungarian–New Zealand CG Supervisor, Lighting Supervisor and Senior Lighting Technical Director with more than 20 years of credits on Academy Award-winning and nominated feature films and AAA games. He has worked at Weta FX / Weta Digital, ReDefine / DNEG, Framestore and The Moving Picture Company (MPC), and led lighting at A44 Games.
- Roles
- CG Supervisor · Lighting Supervisor · Senior Lighting TD · Lighting Artist
- Studios
- Weta FX, ReDefine / DNEG, MPC, Framestore, A44 Games
- Experience
- 20+ years, 29 feature films
- Oscar-credited films
- 4 winners, 7 nominees
- Core tools
- Katana, Manuka, Maya, RenderMan, Nuke, Unreal Engine
- Based in
- Switzerland (remote, EU / UK / AU / NZ)
Where cinematography meets pipeline
In visual effects, lighting is where photography, physics and digital assets meet. For more than twenty years Balazs Kiss has shaped that meeting point on some of the most technically ambitious films ever made — from James Cameron's Avatar films and Peter Jackson's King Kong and The Hobbit, to the Planet of the Apes trilogy and the Harry Potter series.
His work spans sequence lighting leadership, multi-site CG supervision, and lighting pipeline optimisation for both offline film rendering and real-time game engines.
Weta FX / Weta Digital, New Zealand
Kiss first joined Weta Digital in Wellington for the Academy Award-winning King Kong in 2005 and returned in 2008 for almost a decade as Lead and Senior Lighting Technical Director, later continuing remotely at Weta FX.
- Avatar (2009) and Avatar: Fire and Ash (2025) — key sequence lighting in the Manuka and Katana pipeline.
- The Hobbit trilogy (2012–2014) — Lead and Senior Lighting TD.
- Dawn and War for the Planet of the Apes — photoreal ape characters under demanding lighting.
- King Kong (2005) and The Jungle Book (2016) — both Oscar winners for Best Visual Effects.
- Also: Prometheus, The BFG, The Suicide Squad and Greyhound 2.
CG Supervisor at ReDefine / DNEG
From 2022 to 2023 Kiss was CG Supervisor at ReDefine / DNEG, overseeing CG production on Borderlands and the Ripley series. He managed asset integration between lighting, modelling and texturing, briefed shots across teams in India, Spain, London and Canada, and owned render resource priorities and quality approvals.
MPC and Framestore, London
His film career began in 2003 at The Moving Picture Company as a texture artist on Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, painting the Whomping Willow before moving into lighting. Credits followed on Kingdom of Heaven and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire at MPC, and Superman Returns at Framestore CFC.
Game development and real-time lighting
As Lead Lighting Artist at A44 Games on the AAA action RPG Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn, Kiss built the HDRI asset verification pipeline, LUTs, title-menu and desert-sequence lighting, and light source design in Unreal Engine. His roots are in games: in the late 1990s and early 2000s he created art for CyberBall, HydroJet and Bloody Waters.
Recognition
Kiss is a member of the Visual Effects Society and contributed to VES award-winning teams on Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and Kingdom of Heaven. Early personal work won the 3D Festival 2000 Digital Hero Award in Denmark and first place in the Animago Award animals category (2003), and he was featured in 3D World magazine's 100th issue.
Note on accuracy: the Academy credits each film's supervising team rather than individual artists, so Kiss holds no personal Oscar. His contribution to these productions was as a Lead and Senior Lighting Technical Director.
- Oscar winners for Best Visual Effects he contributed lighting to: Avatar, Avatar: Fire and Ash, The Jungle Book, King Kong.
- Oscar nominees he contributed lighting to: War and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and The Desolation of Smaug, Prometheus, Superman Returns, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.
