Animal Logic in association with Warner Animation Group, recently completed production on The Master, a beautiful and hilarious short featuring Master Wu voiced by Jackie Chan and a larger than life Chicken, voiced by Abbi Jacobson.

The short, which previewed before the animated feature Storks, combines LEGO® bricks with a natural world, which presented an exciting opportunity for the team at Animal Logic.

CG Supervisor, Greg Jowle, explains how Animal Logic’s proprietary render software Glimpse played a big part in the process.

“We were pushing things more with The Master. We had these photorealistic plants and ground plains and rocks that we had to incorporate next to photorealistic LEGO®. We wanted all elements to have the same quality and have it feel like it’s part of that same world.”

Brick destruction, which played a big role in The LEGO® Movie, was used in The Master with the added complexity of interacting with plausibly realistic environments.

“The new challenge was not only were we going to have brick destruction,” explains Jowle, “but the brick destruction was meant to crash into and kick up sand, with clouds wisping around.”

Production Designer, Kim Taylor explains how lighting helped to create the look on The Master, with a large focus on building a naturalist light outside the temple, with an on-set, studio feel inside the temple.

“What we found was that as you go through the short, the natural world and the studio world start to blend. There were interesting challenges making two very different lighting scenarios,” said Taylor.

The short pays homage to old kung-fu films, so you expect wooden dummies and a kung-fu master who loses his cool.

Watch a sneak peek below.