How Fake Money Is Made For Movies And TV | Movies Insider

One of these $100 bills is real,

and the other one is a piece of prop money made for movies.

Can you tell which one is which?

They both have a blue security ribbon, textured ink,

and even the smallest detail,

like text from the Declaration of Independence.

The answer is obvious when you flip them over.

Bills as detailed as this one

are required to be blank on the other side.

That's because if prop makers,

like Prop Movie Money in Florida,

print money that looks too real,

they risk getting in trouble with the US government.

That's what happened 20 years ago

on the set of "Rush Hour 2."

Gregg Bilson Jr.: Money is more work

than it's worth, in the long run.

Narrator: That's Gregg Bilson Jr.,

CEO of the Los Angeles-based ISS Props,

one of the biggest prop houses in the world.

In 2000, Greg got an order for and printed

$1 trillion of prop money for "Rush Hour 2,"

most of which was going to be blown up on screen.

And the prop money looks good in this scene.

Too good, in fact.

Carter: Hello, Benjamin!

Narrator: The fake money looked so real

that some extras on set pocketed some of it

and tried to spend it at real stores.

That alerted the US Secret Service,

which confiscated and destroyed the fake bills

and the digital files used to print them.

It had cost $100,000 to print all of that fake money,

so losing all of it was a financial blow

to Gregg and ISS.

Bilson: We didn't try to make fake money to dupe the public.

We made fake money to make a movie.

But we just made the prop too good.

Narrator: The "Rush Hour 2" incident underscored

an obvious dilemma for printing fake money.

The money needs to look realistic on camera,

but it can't look too realistic up close,

or people might try to spend it in real life.

The problem has become even greater in recent years,

with better cameras capturing more and more details

from the background of scenes.

So the prop industry has come up with

two different types of prop money,

each with its own strengths and weaknesses.

For scenes where the cash is filmed from far away,

productions typically use standard-grade bills.

The iconic money scene from "Breaking Bad" uses these bills,

which were rented from Gregg and ISS.

These bills look real from afar,

but up close are obviously fake,

with lots of clear differences

when compared to the real thing.

The portrait on the bill is poor quality

compared to the real one.

And instead of "one hundred dollars,"

it just reads "one hundred."

The smaller details on the bill are also altered.

The seals are a different design,

and the signatures on the bill have been changed.

Then there are the obvious additions,

like the prominently displayed

"for motion picture use only."

In fact, if you zoom in to this scene from "Breaking Bad,"

while it's blurry, you can actually see

that each bill says "for motion picture use only."

These changes should keep the Secret Service away,

but they also mean standard fake bills

are no good for close-ups.

So for those shots, movies will often use high-grade bills.

High-grade bills are identical to real money

but are printed on only one side

so that they can't be confused with the real thing.

Like the one we showed you earlier,

which was printed by RJR Props in Atlanta.

You can see an example of a high-grade bill

in this scene from the 2014 movie "Let's Be Cops."

An alternate solution that Gregg and ISS

have been using for the past several years

is to simply use real bills.

This is the first version that they offer.

ISS will take a pile of completely blank bill notes

and then place one real bill on the top of the stack

and one on the bottom,

making it appear as if the entire stack

is full of real bills.

The second method for using real dollars

has a bigger risk attached, but it may be the best option.

An entire stack of real bills.

ISS will get stacks of $10,000 from the bank

and then deliver them to set.

While having this much cash lying around

makes some productions nervous,

it looks great on film

and eliminates any risk with the Secret Service.

That's what they did in this shot from "Ozark."

Bilson: I see fake money used all the time,

and I think it is appalling,

because I'm a property master,

and I want things to be authentic

and accurate and look right.

Narrator: Take a look at this

season one episode of "Girlfriends."

The fake-looking money is distracting to the audience.

While productions may prefer to use real money,

sometimes it's unavoidable,

like in scenes where bills are destroyed

or in scenes that require an absurd quantity.

In cases like these, Gregg says

that he will still use fake money.

Except he certainly doesn't print the fake money himself,

as he still has his cease and desist

from the Secret Service.

So he buys it from Prop Movie Money,

one of the few printers that make prop money.

The ultimate irony of printing prop money

is that it actually isn't very profitable.

Standard and high-grade bills

sell for roughly $45 for a stack of 100 bills.

Gregg still has two bills from "Rush Hour 2"

that the Secret Service didn't confiscate.

Even though these bills look less realistic

than modern prop bills,

he still has them encased in plastic

so that no one can try to use them in real life.

They're a physical reminder of the risks prop makers take

and the rewards they reap to get that perfect money shot.