There seem to be a lot of possibilities that would do in various positions.
If you could make the money feel distinctively different, while appearing the same, it would probably be enough to cause a receiver to pay sufficient attention to notice the minor differences.
Printing different denominations on each side of the bill would be sufficient for most stationary money.
For scenes with large amounts of free flowing money, you could print the notes backwards and flip the film.
I don't think there would be any single solution for all instances, but I think you could pick a form that would suit whichever scene you were currently shooting.
For scenes with large amounts of free flowing money, you could print the notes backwards and flip the film.
Unfortunately this is usually going to require flipping the actor, creating an even worse problem. A man wearing a suit, for example, will suddenly have his jacket buttoned right-over-left rather than left-over-right, wristwatches and jewelry will appear on the wrong hands, and so on.
Of course, mistakes like this show up in movies all the time, but it's professionally embarrassing and would reflect badly on someone if it was a regular issue in their work.
Different denominations seems like the best solution, but that's still a problem waiting to happen to the unwary art director/continuity supervisor.
"Unfortunately this is usually going to require flipping the actor, creating an even worse problem."
No legal problem, though, I think. As making stuff continues to get easier, this solution gets better, though probably still not practical. And of course as making stuff gets easier we'll eventually need a different kind of approach to counterfeiting.
Appearance of money on film isn't usually a legal problem for the production company, though. The filmmakers and the prop owners don't necessarily have the same priorities - if it cost the film more to rent authentic-looking cash for whatever reason, that's just a line item in the budget. It can even be worth hiring the real cash at a premium because the armored truck, hawk-eyed security guards, on-set audits etc. may be worth it in marketing terms.
Sure. Though many of the things needing reflection would also be props, and if the Secret Service were sufficiently interested in cracking down that mirroring or real cash were the only real options, mirroring would itself be "just a line item" to be compared with the other. Like I said, though, probably not actually practical.
Color correction, on the other hand, might be a practical approach...
I can definitely see potential in the color correction idea, but usually that involves keying ona fairly narrow range of color so I don't know how it would hold up under a wide variety of lighting conditions - although it's not like you're scattering money in every scene unless it's a very very bad heist movie XD
I have a colorist friend that does a lot of mega-budget projects so I'll drop him a line and ask...although I suspect his answer will be 'anything's possible if you're willing to write a large enough check.'
>According to the Counterfeit Detection Act of 1992, a reproduced bill must be: a.) either less than 75% or more than 150% the size of a real bill, b.) one-sided, and c.) made with only one color (so as to discourage the reproduction of identifying factors).
If you're saying that a flipped bill may still be illegal, I'll grant that. What I was saying is that flipping the other stuff does not present a legal problem (or at least not any that I can imagine).
Plus, people look totally different mirrored from left to right. Can you imagine Marilyn Monroe's famous beauty mark or Leonard Nimoy's arched eyebrow on the wrong side?
"Plus, people look totally different mirrored from left to right."
Less so celebrities, in general, though still the case... But anywhere you could swap in a stunt double you could almost certainly get away with mirroring the person.
We're all inherently working within the movie/prop company's framework while brainstorming fake money ideas. The prop company has two goals:
1. Make something convincing on camera.
2. Make something readily distinguishable from real money.
They've already succeeded! New solutions may be fun, but it's still reinventing the wheel in the end. (Which may explain why programmers are falling over themselves to do it...) But there are two extra constraints that Hollywood isn't meeting with some of their current solutions:
3. Make something which meets Federal laws for fake money.
4. Make something which could not be passed ever.
3&4 are potentially the same, in that 3 is written to try to achieve 4, but I think it's important to note that Hollywood is (or was, until the recent innovations mentioned at the end of the article) failing at.
I don't think most of the solutions suggested in this thread actually solve 4. I think mirrored, cut in half, and even bills with 'FAKE' printed across the middle could still be passed with a fair success rate, and moreover a criminal could laugh it off as a mistake if they were caught.
So what couldn't be passed, aside from the absurdly large/small bills the Feds want, or the glued together blocks used now?
Well, once it's banded it becomes much easier anyways. A stack of 20s costs 40 dollars, because your interior bills can look as fake as you like - just use real ones on the external faces.
If you could make the money feel distinctively different, while appearing the same, it would probably be enough to cause a receiver to pay sufficient attention to notice the minor differences.
Printing different denominations on each side of the bill would be sufficient for most stationary money.
For scenes with large amounts of free flowing money, you could print the notes backwards and flip the film.
I don't think there would be any single solution for all instances, but I think you could pick a form that would suit whichever scene you were currently shooting.