Fake money as a film prop

Only print the side you need, and when you print it, make it pixelated. On the back of the note, print (in all caps and red ink): "FILM PROP, NOT VALID CURRENCY". When you film it, film it from a little bit of a distance so that it doesn't appear pixelated.
 
Only print the side you need, and when you print it, make it pixelated. On the back of the note, print (in all caps and red ink): "FILM PROP, NOT VALID CURRENCY". When you film it, film it from a little bit of a distance so that it doesn't appear pixelated.

wow pixelating it is a great idea.
 
Here's a quick test:

filmmoneytest.jpg


In the centre of the note, there is a thin black line which has the words "This is a fake money". I wrapped the elastic band on top of that line so it's not visible to the camera.

The top and bottom sheet are printed. The bulk centre of the stack is plain paper.

The note is heavily retouched (registration number is removed, various of text is also removed, signatures and the cashiers name is removed, colour is slightly altered etc)

Finally, only one side is printed and the note is quite larger than the real one.
 
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If you use an actual money wrapper to hide the fake money declaration instead of an elastic then you can be as close as you want.


Side Note: If you're in the U.S., the currency is dropping so fast in value it will soon probably be cheaper to use the real thing than go to all the expense of printing fake currency. :D
 
What about for up-close?

I don't have any close ups of the money in this film. However, that picture is actually printed as a RGB 300dpi.

I tested out with CMYK at a 600dpi on a £20 notes. It's actually very detailed and it triggered photoshop's "rulesforuse.org window warning" that looks like this:

photoshop_bankovky.gif


I had to lower the dpi to get away from that warning and it still looks great.

This is the result:

DSC06589.jpg


A quick test:

DSC06573.jpg
 
If you use an actual money wrapper to hide the fake money declaration instead of an elastic then you can be as close as you want.


Side Note: If you're in the U.S., the currency is dropping so fast in value it will soon probably be cheaper to use the real thing than go to all the expense of printing fake currency. :D

I originally wanted to use a wrapper but I couldn't find any on the web. Unless I make one (which would kill my ink cartridge), all I could find was a dollar wraps :o

Another approach is ( and it depends on if your not going to expose every bill of course ) cut the paper to nearly the exact size and then top of the stacks of blanks with real money. This works for most shots.

Pappas
http://www.facebook.com/PappasArts
http://www.pbase.com/Arrfilms
http://www.PappasArts.com

yup. that's an alternative. However, I'm working with over dozen of film crew for the first time and I don't want to keep an eye on the prop or assign someone to look after it :o

I'm saying this because I am working with huge stacks of money but so far, this method is doing it for me.
 
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