The Works
Encyclopedia
The Works is a shelved 3D computer animated
film
which was under development by the staff of the Computer Graphics Lab
in association with the New York Institute of Technology
in Old Westbury, New York. Being worked on sporadically from 1979 to 1986, the film's development and production had difficulties which finally prompted the film being abandoned before completion. The Works would have been the first entirely 3D CGI film in history had it been finished in the early 1980s as intended. This goal was later accomplished by Disney Pixar
's Toy Story
released in 1995, nearly a decade after The Works was attempted. The name was inspired by the original meaning of the word "robot
", from "robota" "work" in many Slavic languages. It was originally intended to be approximately 90 minutes long although less than 10 minutes were known to be produced. Short in length and few in number, the completed film sequences were highly impressive considering the state of the technology and what was then the unique look of 3D computer animation. A trailer of the forthcoming film was screened at SIGGRAPH
in 1982. The project also resulted in other groundbreaking computer animations such as 3DV, Sunstone, Inside a Quark
and some segments of the short movie The Magic Egg from 1984.
, was never finalized but centered around "Ipso Facto", a charming elliptical robot
, and the heroine, a young female pilot nicknamed "T-Square". The story was set at some time in the distant future when a malfunctioning computer, "The Works", triggered a devastating last World War but then, realizing what it had done, set out to repopulate the planet entirely with robots. T-Square, who worked and lived in a nearby asteroid belt, vowed to journey to Earth and fight to make it safe for the return of her fellow space-faring humanity. Many staff-members contributed designs and modeled characters and sets under the coordination of art director Bil Maher who created blueprint-style designs for T-Square and many of the 25 robots called for by the script. Dick Lundin, legendary for his exhaustive and elaborate creations, designed and animated a huge mining ship and the famous gigantic robot "Ant" which was to be one of the villains in control of the Earth.
), entrepreneur and eccentric millionaire Dr. Alexander Schure
, had a long and ardent interest in animation. He was a great admirer of Walt Disney
and dreamed of making animated features like those from the golden age of theatrical animation. He had already had created a traditional animation facility at NYIT. After visiting the University of Utah and seeing the potential of the computer technology in the form of the computer drawing program Sketchpad
created by Ivan Sutherland
, he told his people to pore over the Utah research center and get him one of everything they had. He then established the NYIT Computer Graphics Lab, buying state-of-th-art equipment and hiring major researchers from throughout the computer graphics field.
At first, one of CGL's main goals was to use computers to produce 2D animation and invent tools to assist traditional animators in their work. Schure reasoned that it should be possible to develop computer technology that would make the animation process cheaper and faster. An early version of the CAPS
system later used by Disney
animators were among the tools they created there.
Once its potential became clear, the main focus of the Lab became 3D computer graphics, and when Lance Williams presented his story, "The Works", the idea was to attempt to make it as a 3D computer animated feature. Schure enthusiastically agreed and green-lit the project as he too dreamt of a computer animated movie and had this in mind when he created the facility. This movie project became the center of attention at NYIT CGL. For many of the individuals involved, it became a primary and personal goal to create the first computer generated feature.
While creating a one-of-a-kind film in a method that had never been done before was the motivation, the practical reason for the project was to continue to develop patentable tools while demonstrating what computer animation could accomplish for the entertainment industry. In theory the project's success would lead to significant improvements in visual effects and the in editing process in film and television. Integrating computer power into visual media held promise in terms of speed, cost, creativity, and quality compared to more conventional techniques. The arrival of "The Works" would have been the beginning of a new animation genre
. Interested representatives from movie studios and television networks regularly toured the lab as did musicians Laurie Anderson
and Peter Gabriel
, puppeteer
Jim Henson
and animation
legends Chuck Jones
and Shamus Culhane
.
Dr. Schure was well aware of the challenges and potential for success going into the project and consistently provided very extensive resources to aid the research and development of the necessary technologies. Dr. Schure also believed that his staff would work best if they were constantly being supplied with the latest computer hardware. This meant that with each new advance in the field, his staff would have to upgrade their systems, convert existing programs, and rework familiar tools for use on new machines. When these upgrades actually delayed production significantly, Schure kept himself isolated from the complaints of his staff but for his part there were never any budgetary constraints or the pressure of a release date.
for nearly a decade and was eventually abandoned for several reasons. The staff was composed almost entirely of technical experts, such as engineer
s and programmer
s, with directors
and editors considered unnecessary. When NYIT, with Schure as a director, produced a 2D feature known as Tubby the Tuba
, the film did very poorly and shook their confidence in their ability to produce a film that would succeed critically or financially. The lukewarm reception of Disney's
heavily computer-themed Tron
did little to buoy the group's confidence in their ultimate success.
CGL was not working in a field without competition. George Lucas
also realized the potential gains from computer animation, and in 1979, he created a new department of Lucasfilm
which had the same goals as CGL, but ensured that movie industry professionals had a hand in the production. As Lucasfilm began headhunting for the best talent in the industry, many individuals struggling on "The Works" felt that Lucasfilm was a company more likely to succeed and abandoned NYIT. The Cornell University
was another competitor, and NYIT lost some of its best people to them during the following years.
, were too slow and underpowered to generate the number of images required for a theatrical film. Attempting to pick up the pace, Dr. Shure recommitted himself to the project and the NYIT Computer Graphics Lab had more than 60 employees at its peak. Some were dedicated to "The Works" while others made animations for advertisers as a way to soften the financial toll the prolonged project exacted. Now not only did the computer team have to continue do ground-breaking animation and tool development, but as the quality of their output improved, they attracted outside clients wanting to commission title animations, commercials, and scenes for music videos, jobs which further sapped energy from the production. Scientist Ned Greene looked at the situation, analyzed all the elements needed to the film and crunched the numbers with devastating results: with the technology available, even if all the models and animations were calculated, it would take 7 years to output the rendered frames needed to complete the film. The fact was, that in spite of all the resources brought to bear, CGL did not have the human or technical capacity to create film quality sequences on the hardware of the time.
Once it had been shown that the film could not be realized The Works was officially abandoned. A less ambitious project, "3DV" was attempted. In a bid to circumvent the film-making bottleneck, "3DV" was intended to be a TV special with a script that would include footage originally intended for "The Works" repurposed as programming for an imaginary all-computer generated cable tv service. "3DV" incorporated some of its own innovations like 3D lip-synching and compositing a CG character into a live-action scene but, other than a promotional edit which was shown at SIGGRAPH
, this too went nowhere. Many of those who had been working at CGL were hired by others and took their ideas, techniques and experience to new places. The vision of Dr. Shure and the effort invested in "The Works" were at the forefront of technology which continued to evolve into both an artform and an industry.
Though the film was never completed in spite of the millions of dollars invested in it, it was clear that "The Works" was not a waste of time and money. People involved in the project were and are among the top computer graphics researchers and developers
in the world and their early creations are now in common use in 3D modeling and animation programs and in editors like After Effects, Photoshop, and Flash
. When the first computer animated feature was finally released in the form of Toy Story
, Ed Catmull, one of the founding fathers of the NYIT (New York Institute of Technology
) Computer Graphics Lab and other Lab alumni had become members of PIXAR's staff.
Computer-generated imagery
Computer-generated imagery is the application of the field of computer graphics or, more specifically, 3D computer graphics to special effects in art, video games, films, television programs, commercials, simulators and simulation generally, and printed media...
film
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
which was under development by the staff of the Computer Graphics Lab
Computer Graphics Lab
The Computer Graphics Lab was a computer lab located at the New York Institute of Technology back in the late 1970s. It was originally located at the "pink building" on the NYIT campus....
in association with the New York Institute of Technology
New York Institute of Technology
New York Institute of Technology is a private, non-sectarian, co-educational research university in New York City. NYIT has five schools and two colleges, all with a strong emphasis on technology and applied scientific research...
in Old Westbury, New York. Being worked on sporadically from 1979 to 1986, the film's development and production had difficulties which finally prompted the film being abandoned before completion. The Works would have been the first entirely 3D CGI film in history had it been finished in the early 1980s as intended. This goal was later accomplished by Disney Pixar
Pixar
Pixar Animation Studios, pronounced , is an American computer animation film studio based in Emeryville, California. The studio has earned 26 Academy Awards, seven Golden Globes, and three Grammy Awards, among many other awards and acknowledgments. Its films have made over $6.3 billion worldwide...
's Toy Story
Toy Story
Toy Story is a 1995 American computer-animated film released by Walt Disney Pictures. It is Pixar's first feature film as well as the first ever feature film to be made entirely with CGI. The film was directed by John Lasseter and featuring the voices of Tom Hanks and Tim Allen...
released in 1995, nearly a decade after The Works was attempted. The name was inspired by the original meaning of the word "robot
Robot
A robot is a mechanical or virtual intelligent agent that can perform tasks automatically or with guidance, typically by remote control. In practice a robot is usually an electro-mechanical machine that is guided by computer and electronic programming. Robots can be autonomous, semi-autonomous or...
", from "robota" "work" in many Slavic languages. It was originally intended to be approximately 90 minutes long although less than 10 minutes were known to be produced. Short in length and few in number, the completed film sequences were highly impressive considering the state of the technology and what was then the unique look of 3D computer animation. A trailer of the forthcoming film was screened at SIGGRAPH
SIGGRAPH
SIGGRAPH is the name of the annual conference on computer graphics convened by the ACM SIGGRAPH organization. The first SIGGRAPH conference was in 1974. The conference is attended by tens of thousands of computer professionals...
in 1982. The project also resulted in other groundbreaking computer animations such as 3DV, Sunstone, Inside a Quark
Quark
A quark is an elementary particle and a fundamental constituent of matter. Quarks combine to form composite particles called hadrons, the most stable of which are protons and neutrons, the components of atomic nuclei. Due to a phenomenon known as color confinement, quarks are never directly...
and some segments of the short movie The Magic Egg from 1984.
Plot
The story, written by Lance WilliamsLance Williams
Lance J. Williams is a prominent graphics researcher who made major contributions to texture map prefiltering, shadow rendering algorithms, facial animation, and antialiasing techniques...
, was never finalized but centered around "Ipso Facto", a charming elliptical robot
Robot
A robot is a mechanical or virtual intelligent agent that can perform tasks automatically or with guidance, typically by remote control. In practice a robot is usually an electro-mechanical machine that is guided by computer and electronic programming. Robots can be autonomous, semi-autonomous or...
, and the heroine, a young female pilot nicknamed "T-Square". The story was set at some time in the distant future when a malfunctioning computer, "The Works", triggered a devastating last World War but then, realizing what it had done, set out to repopulate the planet entirely with robots. T-Square, who worked and lived in a nearby asteroid belt, vowed to journey to Earth and fight to make it safe for the return of her fellow space-faring humanity. Many staff-members contributed designs and modeled characters and sets under the coordination of art director Bil Maher who created blueprint-style designs for T-Square and many of the 25 robots called for by the script. Dick Lundin, legendary for his exhaustive and elaborate creations, designed and animated a huge mining ship and the famous gigantic robot "Ant" which was to be one of the villains in control of the Earth.
Pre-production
The founder of NYIT (New York Institute of TechnologyNew York Institute of Technology
New York Institute of Technology is a private, non-sectarian, co-educational research university in New York City. NYIT has five schools and two colleges, all with a strong emphasis on technology and applied scientific research...
), entrepreneur and eccentric millionaire Dr. Alexander Schure
Alexander Schure
Alexander Schure was an American academic. Schure founded the New York Institute of Technology in 1955. He also served as the Chancellor of Nova Southeastern University from 1970 until 1985....
, had a long and ardent interest in animation. He was a great admirer of Walt Disney
Walt Disney
Walter Elias "Walt" Disney was an American film producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor, animator, entrepreneur, entertainer, international icon, and philanthropist, well-known for his influence in the field of entertainment during the 20th century. Along with his brother Roy O...
and dreamed of making animated features like those from the golden age of theatrical animation. He had already had created a traditional animation facility at NYIT. After visiting the University of Utah and seeing the potential of the computer technology in the form of the computer drawing program Sketchpad
Sketchpad
Sketchpad was a revolutionary computer program written by Ivan Sutherland in 1963 in the course of his PhD thesis, for which he received the Turing Award in 1988. It helped change the way people interact with computers...
created by Ivan Sutherland
Ivan Sutherland
Ivan Edward Sutherland is an American computer scientist and Internet pioneer. He received the Turing Award from the Association for Computing Machinery in 1988 for the invention of Sketchpad, an early predecessor to the sort of graphical user interface that has become ubiquitous in personal...
, he told his people to pore over the Utah research center and get him one of everything they had. He then established the NYIT Computer Graphics Lab, buying state-of-th-art equipment and hiring major researchers from throughout the computer graphics field.
At first, one of CGL's main goals was to use computers to produce 2D animation and invent tools to assist traditional animators in their work. Schure reasoned that it should be possible to develop computer technology that would make the animation process cheaper and faster. An early version of the CAPS
Computer Animation Production System
The Computer Animation Production System is a proprietary collection of software programs, scanning camera systems, servers, networked computer workstations, and custom desks developed by The Walt Disney Company together with Pixar in the late-1980s...
system later used by Disney
Walt Disney Feature Animation
Walt Disney Animation Studios is an American animation studio headquartered in Burbank, California. The studio, founded in 1923 as the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio by brothers Walt and Roy Disney, is the oldest subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company...
animators were among the tools they created there.
Once its potential became clear, the main focus of the Lab became 3D computer graphics, and when Lance Williams presented his story, "The Works", the idea was to attempt to make it as a 3D computer animated feature. Schure enthusiastically agreed and green-lit the project as he too dreamt of a computer animated movie and had this in mind when he created the facility. This movie project became the center of attention at NYIT CGL. For many of the individuals involved, it became a primary and personal goal to create the first computer generated feature.
While creating a one-of-a-kind film in a method that had never been done before was the motivation, the practical reason for the project was to continue to develop patentable tools while demonstrating what computer animation could accomplish for the entertainment industry. In theory the project's success would lead to significant improvements in visual effects and the in editing process in film and television. Integrating computer power into visual media held promise in terms of speed, cost, creativity, and quality compared to more conventional techniques. The arrival of "The Works" would have been the beginning of a new animation genre
Computer animation
Computer animation is the process used for generating animated images by using computer graphics. The more general term computer generated imagery encompasses both static scenes and dynamic images, while computer animation only refers to moving images....
. Interested representatives from movie studios and television networks regularly toured the lab as did musicians Laurie Anderson
Laurie Anderson
Laura Phillips "Laurie" Anderson is an American experimental performance artist, composer and musician who plays violin and keyboards and sings in a variety of experimental music and art rock styles. Initially trained as a sculptor, Anderson did her first performance-art piece in the late 1960s...
and Peter Gabriel
Peter Gabriel
Peter Brian Gabriel is an English singer, musician, and songwriter who rose to fame as the lead vocalist and flautist of the progressive rock group Genesis. After leaving Genesis, Gabriel went on to a successful solo career...
, puppeteer
Puppeteer
A puppeteer is a person who manipulates an inanimate object, such as a puppet, in real time to create the illusion of life. The puppeteer may be visible to or hidden from the audience. A puppeteer can operate a puppet indirectly by the use of strings, rods, wires, electronics or directly by his or...
Jim Henson
Jim Henson
James Maury "Jim" Henson was an American puppeteer best known as the creator of The Muppets. As a puppeteer, Henson performed in various television programs, such as Sesame Street and The Muppet Show, films such as The Muppet Movie and The Great Muppet Caper, and created advanced puppets for...
and animation
Animation
Animation is the rapid display of a sequence of images of 2-D or 3-D artwork or model positions in order to create an illusion of movement. The effect is an optical illusion of motion due to the phenomenon of persistence of vision, and can be created and demonstrated in several ways...
legends Chuck Jones
Chuck Jones
Charles Martin "Chuck" Jones was an American animator, cartoon artist, screenwriter, producer, and director of animated films, most memorably of Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies shorts for the Warner Bros. Cartoons studio...
and Shamus Culhane
Shamus Culhane
James "Shamus" Culhane was an American animator, film director, and film producer.Culhane worked for a number of American animation studios, including Fleischer Studios, the Ub Iwerks studio, Walt Disney Productions, and the Walter Lantz studio. He began his animation career in 1925 working for J.R...
.
Dr. Schure was well aware of the challenges and potential for success going into the project and consistently provided very extensive resources to aid the research and development of the necessary technologies. Dr. Schure also believed that his staff would work best if they were constantly being supplied with the latest computer hardware. This meant that with each new advance in the field, his staff would have to upgrade their systems, convert existing programs, and rework familiar tools for use on new machines. When these upgrades actually delayed production significantly, Schure kept himself isolated from the complaints of his staff but for his part there were never any budgetary constraints or the pressure of a release date.
Production difficulties
While progress on The Works did manage to advance the level of computer animation technology significantly, the film itself was in development hellDevelopment hell
In the jargon of the media-industry, "development hell" is a period during which a film or other project is trapped in development...
for nearly a decade and was eventually abandoned for several reasons. The staff was composed almost entirely of technical experts, such as engineer
Engineer
An engineer is a professional practitioner of engineering, concerned with applying scientific knowledge, mathematics and ingenuity to develop solutions for technical problems. Engineers design materials, structures, machines and systems while considering the limitations imposed by practicality,...
s and programmer
Programmer
A programmer, computer programmer or coder is someone who writes computer software. The term computer programmer can refer to a specialist in one area of computer programming or to a generalist who writes code for many kinds of software. One who practices or professes a formal approach to...
s, with directors
Film director
A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...
and editors considered unnecessary. When NYIT, with Schure as a director, produced a 2D feature known as Tubby the Tuba
Tubby the Tuba (1975 film)
Tubby the Tuba is a 1975 animated feature film, based on the 1945 children's story for concert orchestra and narrator of the same name by Paul Tripp and George Kleinsinger...
, the film did very poorly and shook their confidence in their ability to produce a film that would succeed critically or financially. The lukewarm reception of Disney's
Walt Disney Feature Animation
Walt Disney Animation Studios is an American animation studio headquartered in Burbank, California. The studio, founded in 1923 as the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio by brothers Walt and Roy Disney, is the oldest subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company...
heavily computer-themed Tron
Tron
-Film:*Tron , a franchise that began in 1982 with the Walt Disney Pictures film Tron** Tron , a 1982 science fiction film by Disney, starring Jeff Bridges, Bruce Boxleitner, Cindy Morgan, Dan Shor and David Warner...
did little to buoy the group's confidence in their ultimate success.
CGL was not working in a field without competition. George Lucas
George Lucas
George Walton Lucas, Jr. is an American film producer, screenwriter, and director, and entrepreneur. He is the founder, chairman and chief executive of Lucasfilm. He is best known as the creator of the space opera franchise Star Wars and the archaeologist-adventurer character Indiana Jones...
also realized the potential gains from computer animation, and in 1979, he created a new department of Lucasfilm
Lucasfilm
Lucasfilm Limited is an American film production company founded by George Lucas in 1971, based in San Francisco, California. Lucas is the company's current chairman and CEO, and Micheline Chau is the president and COO....
which had the same goals as CGL, but ensured that movie industry professionals had a hand in the production. As Lucasfilm began headhunting for the best talent in the industry, many individuals struggling on "The Works" felt that Lucasfilm was a company more likely to succeed and abandoned NYIT. The Cornell University
Cornell University
Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...
was another competitor, and NYIT lost some of its best people to them during the following years.
Losing interest
Another major problem was in the computers themselves. They were among the best and most powerful of their kind but, compared to the computers of todayHistory of computing hardware (1960s-present)
The history of computing hardware starting at 1960 is marked by the conversion from vacuum tube to solid state devices such as the transistor and later the integrated circuit. By 1959 discrete transistors were considered sufficiently reliable and economical that they made further vacuum tube...
, were too slow and underpowered to generate the number of images required for a theatrical film. Attempting to pick up the pace, Dr. Shure recommitted himself to the project and the NYIT Computer Graphics Lab had more than 60 employees at its peak. Some were dedicated to "The Works" while others made animations for advertisers as a way to soften the financial toll the prolonged project exacted. Now not only did the computer team have to continue do ground-breaking animation and tool development, but as the quality of their output improved, they attracted outside clients wanting to commission title animations, commercials, and scenes for music videos, jobs which further sapped energy from the production. Scientist Ned Greene looked at the situation, analyzed all the elements needed to the film and crunched the numbers with devastating results: with the technology available, even if all the models and animations were calculated, it would take 7 years to output the rendered frames needed to complete the film. The fact was, that in spite of all the resources brought to bear, CGL did not have the human or technical capacity to create film quality sequences on the hardware of the time.
Once it had been shown that the film could not be realized The Works was officially abandoned. A less ambitious project, "3DV" was attempted. In a bid to circumvent the film-making bottleneck, "3DV" was intended to be a TV special with a script that would include footage originally intended for "The Works" repurposed as programming for an imaginary all-computer generated cable tv service. "3DV" incorporated some of its own innovations like 3D lip-synching and compositing a CG character into a live-action scene but, other than a promotional edit which was shown at SIGGRAPH
SIGGRAPH
SIGGRAPH is the name of the annual conference on computer graphics convened by the ACM SIGGRAPH organization. The first SIGGRAPH conference was in 1974. The conference is attended by tens of thousands of computer professionals...
, this too went nowhere. Many of those who had been working at CGL were hired by others and took their ideas, techniques and experience to new places. The vision of Dr. Shure and the effort invested in "The Works" were at the forefront of technology which continued to evolve into both an artform and an industry.
Though the film was never completed in spite of the millions of dollars invested in it, it was clear that "The Works" was not a waste of time and money. People involved in the project were and are among the top computer graphics researchers and developers
Software developer
A software developer is a person concerned with facets of the software development process. Their work includes researching, designing, developing, and testing software. A software developer may take part in design, computer programming, or software project management...
in the world and their early creations are now in common use in 3D modeling and animation programs and in editors like After Effects, Photoshop, and Flash
Adobe Flash
Adobe Flash is a multimedia platform used to add animation, video, and interactivity to web pages. Flash is frequently used for advertisements, games and flash animations for broadcast...
. When the first computer animated feature was finally released in the form of Toy Story
Toy Story
Toy Story is a 1995 American computer-animated film released by Walt Disney Pictures. It is Pixar's first feature film as well as the first ever feature film to be made entirely with CGI. The film was directed by John Lasseter and featuring the voices of Tom Hanks and Tim Allen...
, Ed Catmull, one of the founding fathers of the NYIT (New York Institute of Technology
New York Institute of Technology
New York Institute of Technology is a private, non-sectarian, co-educational research university in New York City. NYIT has five schools and two colleges, all with a strong emphasis on technology and applied scientific research...
) Computer Graphics Lab and other Lab alumni had become members of PIXAR's staff.
Partial credits
- Lance WilliamsLance WilliamsLance J. Williams is a prominent graphics researcher who made major contributions to texture map prefiltering, shadow rendering algorithms, facial animation, and antialiasing techniques...
- Paul Heckbert
- Dick Lundin
- Christie Barton
- Bil Maher