He described his early experiences with cinema as being the result of his “European parents who watched a lot of foreign films with subtitles.”[1] Around the age of ten, his family moved to a more urban area with several movie theaters, where he began to see multiple American films a week for several years.
[5] Takacs collaborated with Canadian author and filmmaker Peter Vronsky during the 1970s and acted as a cinematographer and art director on some of his films.
[6] In 1978, he released his first feature-length film, the independently-produced sci-fi musical Metal Messiah, which featured numerous Toronto-based musicians, including members of Kickback and the Cardboard Brains.
The production originated from Takács' attempt to secure funding for a film version of the 1975 young adult novel The Girl Who Owned a City by O. T. Nelson.
[9] In the 1990s, Takács moved into television, directing episodes of Red Shoe Diaries, the 1995 revival of The Outer Limits, Police Academy (the series) and Sabrina the Teenage Witch (including the 1996 pilot movie for the latter and its 1998 sequel).