"Blood Money" (Feature, 2009)

Shot in Brisbane, Sydney, Hong Kong & Miami, Bloody Money is a truly ambitious action-thriller project. With a budget of $1.5m, shooting RED meant the production could achieve the 35mm look, yet save on film stock and processing costs. Dan Graetz has been appointed Editor and Colorist for the film. In addition, Graetzmedia has supplied two RED One kits to the film, along with data wrangling and onset tech consulting. This end-to-end service ensures consistency and quality-control of the workflow and 'look' of the film.
Dan Macarthur is the DP of Blood Money. Here's some excerpts from his recent ACS article:

"Blood Money is a low budget feature which has big budget ideas. The $1.5million budget belies the actuality of the production value on screen, with action sequences and locations that could be from any Hollywood blockbuster.

The brainchild of Greg McQualter, who has written and is producing and directing the film, explores the story of a Chinese hit man (played by Zheng Liu who I believe is the next Brue Lee). The hit man is called upon when a bunch of Colombian bad guys from Miami wipe out the Chinese drug mafia of Sydney.
The Chinese hire our hero who is just as crazy as everyone else and doesn't let people live for long. The plot thickens and you have a show down in The Back streets of Hong Kong.

It's been incredible what Greg and his friends in Miami have pulled off for the skeleton budget he's had to work with. We started shooting in Brisbane and were able to find just enough locations to pull of a 'Sydney ' look. Dan Graetz, who is also the editor of this film, was able to come on board with his Red camera and provide data transfers, editing, grading and a whole box of tricks. That made it very handy to have him on set. When you've got the editor and a VFX savvy man on set, it can be very handy to look at quick edits and test green screen effects shots while you're shooting.

The Red Camera has been outstanding with the look of the picture coupled with super speeds on a narrow depth of field. A lot of the time, I'm able to pull focus myself with the 720p monitors, especially with close-ups. In low light conditions it's the best I've ever seen."

We recently produced two teaser-trailers part way through principal photography. The first teaser features footage from Brisbane, Sydney and Hong Kong. You can also see a side-by-side comparison of the raw RED footage alongside the grading and stabilising work we did.