The Works (film)

For "The Works Art & Design Festival" see The Works Art & Design Festival

For other uses of the word "Works", see Works

The Works was to be the first entirely 3D computer animated film, created by the Computer Graphics Lab, but was never completed. The name was inspired by the original meaning of the word "robot", which means "work" in Czech. It was started in 1979, some say 1978, and was worked on until 1986. It was supposed to be around 90 minutes long, but only a few minutes were actually made. These sequences of film were on the other hand very impressive considered the time they were created. A trailer of the movie was shown on SIGGRAPH in 1982. The project also resulted in famous computer animations such as "3DV", "Sunstone", "Inside a Quark" and some segments of the short movie "The Magic Egg" from 1984.

The story, which was written by Lance Williams, was never clearly defined but centred around "Clyde," a robot drone. A female robot called "T-Square" was meant to be the heroine of the story and Dick Lundin's famous giant Ant was supposed to be one of the enemies. It was planned to use around 25 robots in total. The story was laid to somewhere in the future where a last World War had lead to an advanced computer network who now dominated and controlled the world.

The founder of NYIT (New York Institute of Technology), the entrepreneur and eccentric millionaire Dr. Alexander Schure, had long had a big interest in animation. He was a great admirer of Walt Disney and had a dream of making animated features like those made in the glory days of Disney. He already had a traditional animation facility at NYIT when he established the new Computer Graphics Lab. CGL (Computer Graphics Lab) at NYIT soon hired the biggest talents in the computer graphics field. After a visit to the University of Utah and seeing the potential in the computer technology there, like the computer program named Sketchpad created by Ivan Sutherland, he told his people to get him one of everything they had in the research center for computer graphics at Utah.

At first, one of CGL's main goals was traditional 2D animation and inventing tools to assist the animators in their work. Schure hoped it would 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.

Soon the main focus became 3D computer graphics, and when Lance Williams presented his story and the idea about making it as a 3D computer animated feature, which Schure found interest in and accepted (probably because he too dreamt about a computer animated feature and had this in mind when he created CGL), it was this movie project that became the main centre of the action and progress at NYIT. For many of the individuals involved, it became a primary and personal goal to create a CGI feature.

Just the thought of creating something completely new that had never been done before was exciting enough, yet the original and main reason for doing so was to demonstrate the potential and possibilities of what computer animation could do for the entertainment industry. The visual effects and parts of the editing in the movie and TV medium could be greatly improved if they succeeded, and the effects could be done faster, better and cheaper compared to more conventional techniques. Even a new animation genre would be created. But first they had to show the world what could be done with the help of computers.

The project was as not only about the movie, but also about computer graphics research and science, which was necessary because none of the movie-making equipment needed existed at the time they started. Thanks to all the money and seemingly unlimited resources Schure invested in it, the staff was pretty free to do whatever they wanted and to use their talents and creativity in ways that would have been impossible in a Hollywood movie. They designed, developed and evolved the technology and equipment they needed. The money spent on this kind of freedom paid off, a huge number of new tools and techniques were made and stuff never seen before, and the workers spent the most of their waking hours in the lab. Because the movie was not some sort of Hollywood production but was intended as a way to introduce a new and groundbreaking technology into the world of movie-making and entertainment, it didn't have any budget or a release date (or a release year).

The story itself was nothing more than an idea with some theory behind it. Even then, it was impossible to turn the story into a computer-animated movie without building all the technology they needed from scratch. From this starting point, more and more new layers to the story and technology were added in the following years, causing it grow bigger, larger and more complex than the years before. Collective feedback processes inspired the crew to constantly experiment and try something fresh. The different elements influenced each other, the centre of all the work improved and evolved as new stuff was added and the whole thing was starting to take form and the progress continued as the shape of the project became clearer and more visible. Everything seemed to go in the right direction.

Unfortunately, there were some problems. As the only people involved were technical specialists, such as engineers and programmers, none of them had any experience in movie-making or animation. The managers were not interested in hiring some skilled people from the movie industry like directors or editors, believing that their help was not needed. This frustrated many of those who wanted to make a real film even if they had a lot of freedom in what they were doing.

During the production of this computer animated film, Alexander Schure had the animators at the traditional animation facility at NYIT to make a conventional cel animated feature for him called "Tubby the Tuba." Those working on The Works who saw the movie thought it was so terrible and awful that it became a revelation for them. They realized there was no point in making a movie without a story or experienced filmmakers. They also feared that if their computer animated movie turns out to be a big disaster like "Tubby the Tuba," people would permanently see CGI animation in a negative light. The whole thing suddenly felt like a little too risky for them.

Alexander Schure also wanted his animators to have the best and the newest computers in the business, so old machines were often replaced with new ones. This meant that the staff often had to become familiar with a machine all over again, and when they started to get to know the new machines, they often got replaced once more. Instead of making the work go faster, this habit of buying only the best and up to date tools caused many delays. Schure had a lot of ideas and was full of ambition, but had very little knowledge and insight in what was going on within the project, frustrating his employees even more since it often became difficult to keep the focus right and get the work done.

George Lucas had already seen and understood what computer graphics could do, and in 1979 he created a new department of Lucasfilm with much of the same function as CGL, but this time, there were professionals from the movie industry on the team. He headhunted the best people in computer graphics and animation he could find. This was an opportunity many of the individuals struggling with The Works, as they felt they no longer were able to make a proper movie at NYIT. The Cornell University did the same as Lucas, and NYIT lost most its best people during the next years. CGL was no longer the best of its kind.

Another major problem was in the computers themselves. They were among the best and most powerful of their kind, but compared to the modern computers of today they were rather slow and weak. Similarly, the progress of The Works was just as slow and seemed to take forever, even if the computers became faster and better for each new year. They were good enough to create visual effects in movies, but making a whole movie in only CGI was something else. As time went by some people became so tired about the slow progress that they left the project. The technology needed to make the movie had come a very long way since the start in its early days, but the movie itself was still in a very early stage. Even if Computer Graphics Lab had more then 60 employees at its most, this number was falling as many of them fled to other studios. Not only did a relatively small computer team have to do the time-consuming animation on the outdated computers themselves, they also had to continue to do all the other work that was included and necessary in the development too. The fact that they hadn't the capacity to create film on machines back then, forcing them to make all the preliminaries on video tape, didn't exactly help to speed up the process either.

In the end it became clear the movie would never see the light of day, and the project was abandoned. Many of those who had been working on it were hired by others interested in CGI-animated movies, and the crew took their ideas, inventions and what else they had developd to new places, where the technology continued to evolve in relation to other projects.

Even though the movie itself was never completed and millions of dollars invested in it, it was clearly not a waste of time and money, at least not if looked at objectively. The people involved in the project were as mentioned among the top computer graphics researchers and developers in the world, and they are still some of the biggest names around.

If the project had received the time and resources needed, it probably would have become finished sooner or later. A source of debate, however, is if it would have been a success or a failure. However, there is no doubt that all the experience and discoveries, technology, software and hardware and so on created during the project made the work on The Works worth it. The ground for CGI was built during this time and made it possible for others to continue to built upon. When the first computer animated feature was finally released in the form of Toy Story, one of the main individuals involved was Ed Catmull, who had a history from the Computer Graphics Lab.

Partial credits

• Lance Williams
• Paul Heckbert
• Dick Lundin
• Christie Barton

See also

• Sunstone (computer animation)
• Inside a Quark

External links

• The Works
• Pictures from "The Works" Film Project
• Slide Show