About "The Works"
♦ Contents: ♦ About The Works ♦ Plot ♦ About this site ♦ Credits ♦
"The Works" was a film developed by the New York Institute of Technology's Computer Graphics Lab (or NYIT CGL for short). Starting in 1979 and finally ending in 1986 [src], the lab aimed to use the budding technology of the day to develop the first fully-CGI-animated movie.
The film was produced by NYIT's founder Alexander Shure, who saw potential in computer graphics in filmmaking, and so founded the lab in 1974 and provided it with its cutting-edge technology. The script was written by Lance Williams. "The principal robot designers and modelers were Lance [Williams], Bil Maher, Dick Lundin (designer of the famous robot ant), Ned Greene, and Carter Burwell. Some of the animators were Rebecca Allen and Amber Denker." (from "Brief History of NYIT CGL").
Some good places to read about the NYIT CGL include its Wikipedia page, this excerpt from "CG 101: A Computer Graphics Industry Reference" by Terrence Masson, and the article "Light-years Ahead" by Diane DiPiero.
Plot
Not much was known about the plot of this film. It apparently followed a humanoid robot named T-Square [src] and a frog-like robot named Ipso Facto.
After the 1978 screenplay was shared online in 2021, the full plot was revealed, although it differed from what little details had been shared. (Personally, I think this could be due to a natural tweaking of the plot as time went on.)
After a supercomputer named The Works wiped out humanity on the Earth during a world war, the only remaining humans live in colonies in asteroid belts. 2,000 years after this war, a strange ship approaches the human city, and a boy named Beeper heads out to confront it. The ship contained Ipso Facto, a robot from the Moon. He recruits Beeper to help him carry out his mission from Selene, a research facility computer on the Moon- prove to The Works that humanity is still alive, and for humanity to reclaim their long-lost heritage on the Earth from him.
About this website
My name is Fortis, I'm a young-adult artist in the USA. I became interested in The Works in May 2019 after The Art of Lost and Cancelled Media Twitter shared images from it. I was fascinated by the trailer, and since then I've enjoyed researching it and I want to share the stuff I've found in one place.
In February 2021 I made a wiki for it on Fandom.com, but it was deleted for inactivity in early 2022. Now I'm here to make my own website without that threat of deletion. ::-]
Other than this website I also have my own art portfolio site! It's linked on the front page.
Credits
Material from various official sites & videos includes: the favicon, "The Works" logo (& gif), the side images of Clyde, Ipso, Bulldog, and Panzer; any thumbnails shared on the "Characters" page.
Material created by me based on the official material includes: the backgrounds, the "under construction", "no image", and "shrug" graphics; the site button.
No copyright infringement is intended! This site is for information and fun. Please e-mail me if you need me to take anything down at lucidlunarbeast @ gmail . com.