I think the best part about this project is the fact that I have literally limitless reference material. Type in 'Kung Fu' when you visit Youtube and you are awarded with every cheesy fight known to man, amateur and otherwise.
Best of all however, I have my friends and myself. There's a certain beauty to being able to perform something your drawings can perform, and you get a better feel for the motion when you do it yourself. As for my friends, they can certainly make this a personal experience, as well as provide leverage to ask their teachers and other friends to help.
This here is an intense little choreographed fight that is one of the bases of my animation. Pretty much any of the linked videos that relate to the Chinese Olympics are utterly spectacular and perfect for this. However, I'd only reference them to the point of motion, since my two characters are essentially trying to kill one another.
As for camera angles, a good reference would be some of the later anime that has been released, where the animators realize that sticking the character in front of sparkly lines in the background doesn't cut it any more. Cowboy Bebop, Ghost in the Shell 2, Full Metal Alchemist, Tekkonkinkreet... They all take the movie style steady cam approach to their fight scenes that gives them much more punch. Granted that in traditional kung-fu movies, the cameras were too heavy to hold, thus were fixed and smoother, this however is taking the easy route. I can't take the easy route if I don't want this to look like something one of the Newgrounds kids made...
Which brings me back to how I'll reference it. For some parts, I'll need my own epic footage. This will allow me to create said steady cam effects since all I'll really have access to is a steady cam. It's up to my pen hand to recreate a home martial arts movie into an art piece.
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