In doing my exploration into martial arts, dance and movement, I looked at one of my all time favourite series 'Avatar: the Last Airbender.' Something that is fascinating about this series is how the creators reference Chinese and other Asian culture and martial arts. They had a martial artist, Sifu Kisu, as their consultant on the fighting styles. As a result, the fantasy fighting techniques in the show are grounded and feel realistic to the viewer, and help carry and tell the story. Interestingly, the 'Legend of Korra' series evolves these styles by showing how the traditional martial arts fighting develops in the world to become modernised and merge together with other styles.
In talking to Kate earlier in the semester, we discussed using rotoscoping for me to study human movement. What I want to do is take video clips of fight scenes and of dances and study them, using rotoscoping and also referencing them. What I want to learn from this is a continued practice of my techniques, using animatic and storyboarding as well as drawing frames.