The Works is a shelved animated feature film written and directed by Lance Williams, partially produced from 1979 to 1986. If it had been finished, it would have been the first film that was entirely 3D computer-animated. It included contributions from individuals who would go on to work at digital animation pioneers Pixar and DreamWorks Animation.
The film was developed by the staff of the Computer Graphics Lab in association with the New York Institute of Technology in Old Westbury, New York. The title itself was inspired by the original meaning of the word "robot", derived from "robota" (meaning "workforce" or "slaves"), a word found in Czech and many other Slavic languages. It was originally intended to be approximately 90 minutes long although less than 10 minutes are known to have been produced. A trailer for the film was screened at SIGGRAPH in Boston, Massachusetts in 1982. The project also resulted in other early computer animations such as 3DV, Sunstone, Inside a Quark and segments of the short film The Magic Egg from 1984.
The story is set in a future in which the human race has gone extinct on Earth because of The Works, a military supercomputer that then repopulated the entire planet with robots. Only scientist-astronauts survived and over two millennia created a new society on asteroids. One day the androids stationed on the Moon send them an ambassador, Ipso Facto, tasked with recruiting a human so that he can speak with The Works and obtain data about the former terrestrial civilisation. He encounters a boy, Beeper Raxis, who becomes his companion on the adventure.
Plot
The story, written by Lance Williams, would have centered around "Ipso Facto", an elliptical robot, and a young female pilot nicknamed "T-Square". The story would have been set some time in the distant future after 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 works and lives in a nearby asteroid belt, vows to journey to Earth and fight[s] to make it safe to return to for her fellow space-faring humans. In the distant future, Earth is devastated by the Third World War. To stop it, a military "supercomputer" decides to collide an asteroid with the planet, causing the extinction of all humans. The only survivors are researchers who were on some planetoids conducting studies. Over two millennia, they found a new civilisation.
One day, T-Square and Beeper Raxis, two young spaceship pilots, notice the arrival of a spherical metallic object headed toward one of their "bubble cities". Assuming it might be a bomb sent from Earth to wipe out the last humans, Beeper decides to destroy it by ramming it. The impact actually only damages his craft, which is hurled into deep space. The metallic object instead proves to be a spacecraft piloted by a robot, who goes to rescue Beeper.
The android, named Ipso Facto, is an "expert on humans" and has been sent by Selene, the electronic brain of the Moon's scientific research centre, to recruit a living human who can speak with "The Works", the military "supercomputer" that, having gone mad after the end of the Third World War, tyrannises thousands of robots. The goal is to obtain from it all information relating to human progress, from the arts to science, including technology and medicine, so it can be given to the survivors. Selene had tried several times to speak with The Works, receiving only threats and attempted attacks via nuclear missiles in response.
Beeper accepts the mission. During the journey he is transferred to another spacecraft with which he connects to The Works, which at first does not believe he is human, considering him a robot assembled by Selene to steal its data. Nevertheless, it provides landing coordinates, intending to capture him and extract his memory, in order to obtain useful information about plans devised by its "enemy". When Beeper and Ipso enter the Earth's atmosphere, they are hit by laser beams. They manage to land, but their spacecraft can no longer depart. The boy also moves with great difficulty because of gravity and is forced to wear a special stabilising suit. After leaving the craft, they push into the surrounding vegetation, heading for the central computer. Some robots arrive, tasked with disassembling the visitors: Ipso attempts to convince them that his travelling companion is a genuine Homo sapiens, but they do not believe him, since the stabilising suit and helmet make the youth resemble them. Ipso is therefore forced to display impressive fighting techniques, destroying his opponents one after another.
As they cross an architectural complex under construction, they are intercepted by the Dinosaur Squadron, a group of newly manufactured flying discs that join to form a gigantic Tyrannosaurus rex. Ipso tries to fight it, but is dismantled piece by piece and placed in metal boxes. Beeper, hiding in one of the buildings, follows the vehicles transporting his friend to a pyramidal structure, a kind of warehouse. He gets lost in corridors full of piled-up objects, but eventually finds Ipso Facto and rebuilds him. The pair are confronted by some androids and the Dinosaur Squadron: Ipso manages to neutralise some flying discs and to repurpose one of them, enabling their escape. Outside the building, a tripod robot hits them with a laser beam and they fall into the sea, where they are swallowed by the water and disappear from the pursuers' sight and radar.
thumb|[[Fan art of Ipso Facto performing a karate move]]
Beeper and Ipso Facto wash up on a beach near a landfill; there, Ipso, although missing a hand, repairs a discarded robot. The robot recognises the boy as a human because, being very old, it had actually dealt with humans, unlike newer machines. Asked how to reach The Works, it does not know and directs them toward other machines playing poker. Ipso joins the game and, as the stake, offers Beeper himself, advertising him as a tireless and very strong slave. Despite the boy's fears, Ipso wins game after game, eventually obtaining from one of the opponents, Rusty, its memory. From this, Ipso learns that reaching the central computer requires some heavy unit. Beeper notices a huge ant-shaped vehicle stopped in the road; they board it and set it in motion. Ipso's hand, washed up from the sea, follows them from afar.
With the ant vehicle, they reach a large ventilation duct that leads them inside The Works, a vast complex of machinery and metal structures. Ipso and Beeper are surrounded by military androids, clamped by steel pincers and an immobilising beam. The Works is ready to dismantle them, but Ipso's hand, having slipped into the structure, presses a button that turns the paralysing antenna, striking The Works. All the androids shut down.
Beeper asks Ipso for help, but Ipso, deactivated, cannot respond. However, a spark of life, triggered by the boy's voice, revives him. With his strength, Ipso breaks the clamps, freeing his companion, who, injured, bleeds. The Works notices the blood, understands that he is a real human, and is enthusiastic. Beeper asks why it is happy to see a member of a race it nearly exterminated; it answers that it had no choice: a rival computer possessed deadly bacteriological weapons, and the only way to defeat it was to drop an asteroid on Earth. In addition, The Works had been forced to kill those humans who had managed to survive because, contaminated by viruses released during the conflict, they were attempting to reach the researchers on the asteroids. Beeper, realising that the machine acted for the good of his people, thanks it. He communicates with Selene, who informs everyone of the colonists' imminent arrival, led by T-Square.
Pre-production
Background
thumb|left|[[Alexander Schure, founder of the New York Institute of Technology and the Computer Graphics Lab|260x260px]]
The New York Institute of Technology (NYIT) was founded in 1955 by entrepreneur and academic Alexander Schure, described as an "eccentric, fast-talking millionaire". Across its two campuses, one in Old Westbury (on Long Island) and the other in Manhattan, students were guided into technological and scientific research fields. Through creative teaching methods, the university promoted education for less privileged youth; for example, learning mathematics through comics was tested to help first-year students who were struggling. Schure had already created a traditional animation facility at NYIT. After visiting the University of Utah and seeing the potential of computer technology in the form of the 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". In 1974 Schure announced that he would direct and produce an animated feature film, Tubby the Tuba, inspired by the children's song of the same name (1945) by Paul Tripp and George Kleinsinger. "He hired a hundred animators [...] but soon realised that drawing every frame by hand was a tedious process", so he began looking for means and resources that could speed up production. As Michael Morrison recounted in his essay Becoming a Computer Animator (1994): "After seeing the situation at the UU, he asked Evans what equipment he needed to create computer graphics. He told his people to 'bring me one of everything they have'". was contacted by Schure with a proposal to come to NYIT "to create an independent research lab, hire a team, buy whatever equipment they needed, with no constraints, just to develop a major technology" that could help animators produce cartoons.
And so in 1974 the NYIT Computer Graphics Lab (CGL) was established, buying state-of-the-art equipment and hiring major researchers from throughout the computer graphics field. The CGL was established at Old Westbury, headed by Catmull. He was joined by his friend and colleague Malcolm Blanchard. He and DiFrancesco were immediately hired as "Information Quanta".
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 technology that would make the animation process cheaper and faster. An early version of the CAPS system later used by Disney animators was among the tools created. Over time the lab expanded its staff, bringing in, among others, the visual artist Ed Emshwiller and the programmers and researchers Lance Williams, Jim Blinn, James H. Clark, Tom Duff, Ralph Guggenheim, Garland Stern, Fred Parke and Christy Barton, many of whom came from the University of Utah. Schure imposed no spending limits and managed to acquire the best commercial equipment available, such as a PDP-11 and a VAX from Digital Equipment Corporation, as well as the latest LDS-1 model and the "first random-access framebuffer" from Evans & Sutherland. and Stern developed a scanning-and-paint system that later became the basis of the Computer Animation Production System used by Walt Disney Animation Studios. said:
Technology
left|thumb|Image produced with [[Ray tracing (graphics)|ray tracing with anti-aliasing, 3D projection, reflection mapping and fractal textures. Some of these effects were tested during the production of The Works.|300x300px]]
From the outset The Works was regarded as an ambitious and unprecedented project. Dick Lundin completed several 3D creation tools.
thumb|300x300px|Representation of a 3D model using [[volume rendering and beam tracing]]
Heckbert created POLY (a polygon processor with z-buffer and texture mapping) and an early form of volume rendering known as splatting; with Pat Hanrahan he devised beam tracing and with Greene a z-buffer renderer for fish-eye projections. Hanrahan created a new winged edge library and an interactive modelling program, EM. He also led a project to build a laser device capable of scanning 3D models directly into the computer. John Lewis and Peter Oppenheimer programmed a fractal modelling system, while Greene wrote another capable of recreating skies from photographs. Stern produced the interactive key frame animation system BBOP and Thad Beier produced SSOID, to use constructive solid geometry on quadric surfaces. Important contributions to digital drawing, image morphing and computer animation came from Andrew Glassner, Franklin C. Crow, Tom Brigham, John Schlag, David Sturnam, Kevin Hunter, Tom Shermer and Robert McDermott. Allen and McDermott presented Kick, showing a 3D model of a woman kicking in the air; Heckbert presented Eye Planes, an overlay of polygons textured with a photo of an open eye, and Dome with VW, in which an android stands next to a car in a geometric environment. Blinn proposed two graphical representations of Uranus and Venus (Uranus from Voyager and Venus Topography), while Williams and Lundin presented a view of the robot ant with Ipso Facto called Robot Ant with Ipso.
In 1982, in Boston, Williams and Lundin showed an image produced with a Heckbert program installed on a VAX 11/780, titled Saxobone, depicting an unusual musical instrument resembling a disassembled saxophone in its case. Greene presented Night Castles, also produced on the VAX 11/780, illustrating a composite 3D model of a castle by the sea with polygon shading and textures. The following year, in Detroit, Greene presented Mondo Condo, produced with software written by Heckbert, Duff, Oppenheimer and Williams; it shows two robots observing pyramidal constructions against a rocky background.
At one of the events, a trailer for The Works was especially acclaimed; featuring Patrick Moraz's track Impact, it showed some robots in motion, space battles, anthropomorphic models fighting or swimming, polygon faces and a "dazzling red mask" that was to be the "evil dictatorial computer network".
Production difficulties
While progress on The Works did manage to significantly advance the field of computer animation, the film itself was in development hell for nearly a decade and eventually abandoned for several reasons. The staff was composed almost entirely of technical experts, such as engineers and programmers, 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 poorly and lessened their confidence in their ability to produce a film that would succeed critically or financially. The lukewarm reception of Disney's Tron, which used computer graphics heavily, added to the group's doubts.
By the time The Works was in production, the field of computer graphics had become competitive. George Lucas also recognized the potential of computer animation, and in 1979, 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. Cornell University was another competitor, and NYIT lost some of its staff to the institution.
The computer systems themselves also became a major problem. While the most powerful hardware at the time, they were too slow and underpowered to generate the number of images required for a theatrical film. Attempting to pick up the pace, the NYIT Computer Graphics Lab kept hiring, having more than 60 employees at its peak. As a way to generate funds, a portion of the team did work-for-hire for advertisers. This, however, meant having to balance production on a feature film, the tools needed and client work. Researcher Ned Greene analyzed all the elements needed to finish the film with devastating results: with the technology available, it would take seven years to output the rendered frames needed.
Abandonment of the project
Although Schure imposed no limits on time or budget, after several years the CGL was forced to abandon The Works. First, the staff lacked filmmaking professionals such as directors or editors: In 1984 Maher, Lundin, Williams, Allen and Burwell worked on 3DV, a half-hour TV special starring two CGI-animated hosts, User Friendly and Dot Matrix. Presented at SIGGRAPH, it inspired Annabel Jankel and Rocky Morton in creating Max Headroom for the TV series of the same name, a computer-generated reporter portrayed by actor Matt Frewer. That same year, the CGL team contributed to the OMNIMAX short The Magic Egg, sponsored by Nelson Max and SIGGRAPH organisers Dick Weinberg and Dick Mueller and screened at the July conference in Minneapolis. Despite some issues related to slow devices, the work was completed and Heckbert judged it "a fantastic collage of computer animation".
What was developed at the Computer Graphics Lab passed into the hands of various film studios, both in Silicon Valley and New York, which hosted some of Schure's former employees.