When you see a character hand someone money on screen, can you tell how much they're giving them?
Posted by Available-Exit-1514@reddit | AskAnAmerican | View on Reddit | 146 comments
I'm Australian. Today I was watching Heartbreak High and watched a character pull out two bright red 20s. For the first time in my life I could actually tell how much money was in the scene, because it's my own currency.
I'm so used to watching American shows and not being able to tell the difference between one green paper and another that it kind of floored me.
But this all got me thinking. Since American cash is all the same colour, do you guys struggle to differentiate it too? Or can you just tell?
cherrycokeicee@reddit
using context clues, it's not hard to figure out how much American money is being exchanged (at least a rough enough estimate to understand the story.) the different colored bills might offer a slightly different narrative quality (like the audience could see a color of bill they didn't expect), but this is could also be conveyed through other storytelling devices without using color.
in real life, there's no issue. each bill has a different design in addition to the numbers on the bill, so it's easy to tell at first glance.
also, american money isn't made of paper. that's just a slang term.
Practical-Ordinary-6@reddit
They actually enlarged the portraits a few years ago (or more than a few years ago, but within my more recent lifetime). That made them more prominent and therefore easier to identify.
https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinteresting/s/tWDC92kzIs
Curiously, it looks like they made the actual numbers a little smaller.
Practical-Ordinary-6@reddit
It looks like the change to the bigger portraits started in 1996. They weren't all introduced at the same time but rather rolled out over time, starting with $100 bill.
GreenBeanTM@reddit
Dang everyone but Abraham Lincoln got a serious glow up with the change.
groundhogcow@reddit
They don't even use real money on screen. The movies make clearly fake money for some legal reason (or maybe theft issue) so if we were able to see well enough to count it we would be able to see well enough to tell it's fake.
Sadimal@reddit
It's a few reasons.
GreenBeanTM@reddit
Also: legally prop money has to say that it’s fake. If it doesn’t then you’re just creating counterfeit money.
toomanyracistshere@reddit
Up until maybe the 60's the fake money used on screen was really fake looking. Way more than now. Watch a movie form the 40's or so and it looks nothing at all like the real cash of the era.
jvc1011@reddit
Every so often kids in our area show up with studio money. It’s remarkably realistic except for the words marking it as studio money/for prop use only.
IanDOsmond@reddit
If you can tell the actual amount, then the work won't age well... when you have structural inflation, whether an amount of money is "a lot" or "a little" is deeply dependent upon decade.
Specific amounts of money aren't important in storytelling - the idea of whether it's a trivial amount, a fair amount, or an excessive amount is, and that's portrayed more by acting than props.
So, no, I don't struggle to differentiate how much money is being handed over - because I don't even try.
John_cCmndhd@reddit
It's funny to watch the $5 shake scene in Pulp Fiction now that $5 is a perfectly reasonable price for a milkshake
IanDOsmond@reddit
You watch movies from the forties where people are doing international heists for what you get if you chain an ATM to your pickup truck.
GreenBeanTM@reddit
I love watching “little house on the prairie” for this reason. I find it immensely entertaining every time they’re like “ok girls, here’s your 5 cents for some new paper tablets and you can use the spare penny for some licorice”
charlies-ghost@reddit
I've never thought about it before. I've never really considered the exact quantity cash to be very important to the plot of whatever series or movie I'm watching.
On screen, probably not. In person, our currency has prominently displayed nominal amount + presidential portrait (and Ben Franklin).
I think most Americans can recognize a $1, $5, $20, and $100 by the portrait alone. We don't usually handle cash often, so I would not be surprised if the majority of Americans didn't know who was on the $2 bill (a uncommon currency), $10, or $50 note.
5YOChemist@reddit
I was in line behind someone today, she had a 20, a 50, and two fives. She needed $5.96 and they couldn't break her 20, so I could see and count all her money as she was searching trying to figure out what to do.
smwisdom@reddit
What kind of shop cant break a $20??
GreenBeanTM@reddit
Someone might have cleared out their ones.
KevrobLurker@reddit
Ones that won't take cash?
https://chicago.suntimes.com/2024/2/2/24058122/cashless-economy-businesses-unbanked-underbanked-people-jay-zagorsky-the-conversation
smwisdom@reddit
Except they clearly would have taken her cash. She just didnt have exact change.
Curmudgy@reddit
I can’t remember if I've ever handled a $100. I don’t think of Americans looking at portrait as much as the dollar amount, so I don’t know that they tell by the portrait. I only know the $100 because “Benjamin” is a slang term for it. I don’t know the $20 off the top of my head even though it’s very common, nor the $10 or $50.
cryptoengineer@reddit
I keep two $100 bills tucked behind my drivers license. Often, that's the only cash I'm carrying.
$200 cash will get you out of a lot of unexpected jams.
chubba10000@reddit
My dad used to keep a hundred tucked behind his insurance card in a plastic holder, so that he could hand the whole thing to a cop if necessary but with plausible deniability that it's just emergency money.
Blue387@reddit
I collect money from tenants in a mix of checks, $100/$50/$20 bills
charlies-ghost@reddit
I've never spent a $100 bill, I've only ever used them as cocaine straws.
THE_CENTURION@reddit
Ah, a man of culture
KevrobLurker@reddit
$2 is Jefferson.
turdferguson3891@reddit
I'll Grant you that but what about the 50?
Tankieforever@reddit
I see what you did there
turdferguson3891@reddit
I think a certain musical made the guy in the 10 a little more known.
Fantastic-Pear6241@reddit
In the UK all the notes are a different colour.
They're also all slightly different sizes, so blind people can tell them apart just through touch
Emerald_Pick@reddit
Our bills has slightly different colors.
But for a long time it was just green. And even now the colors are all in the money-green family so contrast is kinda low.
But UK notes being different sizes and very different colors is a great idea. I'm sure the vending machine industry is probably lobbying against it, and I know a lot of us would resist new colors of money, but it'd be such a great accessibility feature.
DenseAstronomer3631@reddit
Right? Can't believe everyone is saying it's all the same color. A stack of 10s and a stack of 100s will not be confused with a stack do 20s unless they are all super old and worn out. Modern 10s and 100s are clearly a light orangeish and light blue respectively
devilbunny@reddit
Probably watching older movies. You don't have to go back that far - maybe 15 years - to get all bills the same color. 30 years ago, they all had the small portraits like $1 still does.
Pomeranian18@reddit
The uniform size of our bills makes it much easier to store in the wallet.
But I like that blind people can tell the difference easily.
Fantastic-Pear6241@reddit
The size differences are very minimal, but noticeable to someone trained to feel the difference, as blind folk generally are
Pomeranian18@reddit
lol to *you* they're minimal, but to me they seemed every-which-way! I lived in London for a year, and earlier, in Cambridge for a year, and only gradually got used to the money!
toomanyracistshere@reddit
The ten is pretty distinctive because it's got a bunch of red on it. All the bills are more colorful than they used to be. The really confusing thing isn't so much the color as it's that they're all the same size.
cryptoengineer@reddit
I find I can identify the denomination of folded or crumpled bill pretty much at a glance. The colors may be the same, but other parts of the layout vary quite a bit, and over time, become very familiar.
Money on screen? Not so easily.
Bibliospork@reddit
Everyone who's familiar with the musical Hamilton knows the $10. I'm old enough to have used a ton of $10 bills, but I bet there's a ton of younger people who very rarely use cash but know the "ten dollar founding father".
GreenBeanTM@reddit
If the amount is important then they’ll either explicitly show the numbers so we can tell, or they’ll be a line like “here’s the 10 grand”
If it’s not important, then neither of those will happen and we won’t care we can’t tell, because it’s not important how much their morning coffee cost them.
Professor_squirrelz@reddit
Unless i can see what number is on the money, then no i cant tell
Appropriate-Food1757@reddit
If I see a bit of the art I know what bill it is.
Avelsajo@reddit
If the amount matters, the actor can cheat the bills to the screen. Or just say here's your 50 bucks or whatever.
notadamnprincess@reddit
We don’t know but we also don’t really care since most of the time it’s not important how much. If it is important, they’ll tell us. “Here’s the $500, man” or whatever.
ExtraTallBoy@reddit
"How do I know that's not a bunch of ones with a 20 wrapped around it?"
stacistacis@reddit
"It's a bullshit question!"
Kvenya@reddit
Because you can’t answer?
stacistacis@reddit
Nobody can answer that question!
Kvenya@reddit
Why not?
stacistacis@reddit
Cause Chevy didn't make a 327 in '55, the 327 didn't come out till '62. And it wasn't offered in the Bel Air with a four-barrel carb till '64. However, in 1964, the correct ignition timing would be four degrees before top-dead-center.
Kvenya@reddit
Ahhhh…she’ll do.
Antitenant@reddit
As I read the original question my thought was: but if all the money was the same color then we wouldn't have this exact scene
Ok_Part6564@reddit
That was actually a plot point in a movie I watch once, they tried to get a way with putting a $100 on the top of the stack with a band around the bills, but when they person receiving it flipped through the bills, the rest were all singles. If I remember the movie correctly everyone pulled out guns then, but I saw it ages ago and only half remember.
newhappyrainbow@reddit
It’s a pretty common trope.
machagogo@reddit
ExtraTallBoy@reddit
I was referring to My Cousin Vinnyousin Vinny
Technical-Bath9108@reddit
If you can't see the numbers or the faces, it's hard to know.
wittyrepartees@reddit
No, but you look at the size of the wad of money, and assume it's in 20s or 100s. There's a joke in Seinfeld about this though, where Kramer is putting the biggest bill on the outside.
TheOwlMarble@reddit
Can we see? No. Can we infer? Yes.
It's pretty much always 20s or 100s, depending on context.
SirSkot72@reddit
I'm reminded of the scene in Dodgeball! Goodman opens a briefcase with a Hundred Thousand Dollars! it's just like two bundles of hundreds, not very impressive.
Kvenya@reddit
In reality, a stack of $100 dollar bills is only $10,000 (100 x 100).
$100,000 would be 10 stacks, so it’s not accurate.
icyDinosaur@reddit
I'm Swiss, and here we have a 1000 CHF bill (currently would exchange to 1265 USD). As a child I was always way more awed than I probably should have been by scenes with briefcases of money because I somehow assumed it was all thousands.
abstractraj@reddit
I assume $2 always
DynamiteWitLaserBeam@reddit
Yep, just a single $2 bill. So representative.
RodneyBarringtonIII@reddit
Hey, I have a friend who only uses $2 bills.
We're in our late 40s, and he's been committed to this since high school. He's even more insufferable than he sounds.
DynamiteWitLaserBeam@reddit
He should try making a $2 Bill Pad just to increase the suspicion level. Even better, make it with uncut bills from the US Mint.
icyDinosaur@reddit
If I take that eight-note sheet, can I actually hand it to someone as a whole, uncut sheet to pay 16$?
DynamiteWitLaserBeam@reddit
I'll allow it.
Freyr_Tuck@reddit
Sometimes it’s a roll of ones with a twenty on the outside.
Insightseekertoo@reddit
I know this reference. "My Cousin Vinny".
turdferguson3891@reddit
We tell by the dead guy whose face is on it. Or if it's the backside of a 1 all the weird masonic illuminati shit. In a movie it's almost always 100s.
Danibear285@reddit
Why would we care if the prop doesn’t match the plot figures?
Available-Exit-1514@reddit (OP)
That's not my question lol.
Okay, I'll give a better example. A man walks up to a car on the side of the road and says "you can't park here". The driver rolls down her window and takes out her purse. She hands him one bill, he glares at it and gestures for more.
In that situation, would you be able to tell how much money she's giving him? Is it instantaeous? Would you need a close-up shot? I'm curious
pawsplay36@reddit
Typically it's an arbitrary number of fake studio $20s.
North81Girl@reddit
I can see numbers...and faces....
dumptruckulent@reddit
I just take their word for it, man.
ImpatientMaker@reddit
Are you teasing us for our money being all the same color? 😁
marvsup@reddit
Whenever someone opens a briefcase full of money, you can usually see that they all have Benjamin Franklin's face. Otherwise, not really, no.
mattcmoore@reddit
The faces and the designs get bigger as the bills get bigger, that's how I can tell.
Traditional_Trust418@reddit
If I can see either the number or the person on the bill I can easily tell
cmiller4642@reddit
I never expect movies and tv shows to be realistic
Former-Fig-9686@reddit
We’re rarely called on to identify it by sight from a distance. Yes, we know exactly how much each bill is. We read it. I think it’s hilarious that people have to go by the color of their money. Do the salespeople in stores say, “That will be three blue ones, one red ones, and a green one”?
Plastic-Sentence9429@reddit
As an American who has worked a lot of jobs that handle cash, you get used to it and can differentiate easily and quickly, but it's rare that it matters in movies or shows.
Although the other day I had to review video because a customer said they'd handed $60 to a cashier, but they'd received change as if they'd handed $40. The cashier was very experienced and I leaned toward believing them, but the video showed otherwise. They weren't stealing, it was just a mistake.
goblin_hipster@reddit
This question bugs me.
All the bills have a huge number in the corner so you can easily tell. If not that, they have different people on them. I know that if I see George Washington I'm definitely looking at a one-dollar bill.
Pomeranian18@reddit
There are very stringent federal anti-counterfeit laws about movie money. If you don't follow the rules exactly, Secret Service gets involved and you can even get felony charges. This leads movies/shows to not zoom into the money because then it would be very easy to see they're fake.
They *can* use real money, but only under certain conditions, so they usually do that only for close-ups when it's absolutely necessary. Like a character takes out money from their wallet and the camera zooms in because the amount of money is important to the plot.
But in general, movies avoid real money especially for scenes where you see a ton of money, like a robbery. Some of the rules:
The image must be either less than 75% (three-fourths) or more than 150% (one and one-half) of the linear dimensions of the actual bill in every part of the illustration. Exact-size replicas are prohibited.
The reproduction must be printed on only one side (this is a standard requirement cited in Treasury guidance and industry practice to make it distinguishable from real money).
The "prop" money is almost always clearly marked with phrases like “For Motion Picture Use Only" or "Not Legal Tender."
I don't know the laws in other countries, and I'm betting the laws don't apply for non-American currency.
TheKiddIncident@reddit
You have to look at each one. Because the denomination is printed on the corner, you usually just fan the bills to check the denomination. If you work in a store, you normally hand check any bill $20 or greater.
For most people, if you have money in your wallet, it's a $20. Most common bill by far.
This-Reindeer6063@reddit
Yes, we can tell the bills apart. They usually have a number on them, but even if not they have different designs and coloring.
Deep-Hovercraft6716@reddit
No we don't have any trouble telling The money apart because it is labeled with its value on the face.
InvestigatorJaded261@reddit
Only if it’s in a suitcase.
kmoonster@reddit
It's usually inferred in the context, if it's not shown explicitly.
Also: movie/tv studios usually use fake money for most purposes, but that money has to have some obvious differences and is usually a bit smaller or over-sized compared to real money.
For small amounts the value is not typically important -- someone borrowing money for a meal, a bus ride, to go to the movies, etc. Sometimes the line is just "hey I want to take my girlfriend to the movies, do you have any cash?" and a few miscellaneous bills change hands. Maybe $20-30 total in several small denominations.
When the face-value is easily visible, it is typically important to the plot. Cash in a suitcase. A bankrobber scene. A stack of 20s at a casino (or 100s at a casino). A bad guy thumbing a wad of cash they manipulated their mark to surrender. The characters are discussing whether they have the cash to get the equipment they need for a heist.
For small amounts you might see something like a character slowly counting out the coins to see if they can buy a bus ride (and the bus ride is important to the plot, so you need tension and questioning their cash is easy tension). Maybe a gangster is too cheap to tip and you see he leaves only a $1 tip on a $100 meal.
Those are scenes where the amount is important to the plot and you are likely to see it explicitly on the screen, but otherwise -- no, not really.
Akem0417@reddit
The real problem is that visually impaired people are easily scammed
CalmRip@reddit
No, it's not hard, but that's because we are accustomed to paying attention to either the portraits in the center of the bill or the numerals in the corner. It took me forever to figure out denominations of deutschmarks, francs, and pounds sterling because the main differentiator was the bill color, I wasn't familiar enough with the portraits/landmarks to use those, and the numerals seemed rather insignificant.
I suspect that everybody struggles with foreign currency when they first encounter it, because the identifiers are different in each case. You might not be able to instantly pick between a €10 bill and a €20 bill the first time you had to pay for something, even though the bills are two different colors.
os2mac@reddit
Honestly I'm mostly shocked IRL when I see cash these days.
papayafighter@reddit
$100s are blue
papayafighter@reddit
What
Classic-Push1323@reddit
$20 bills are by far the most common for informal cash transactions, and that's usually what you get at an ATM, so I assume any cash transactions in media are done in 20s unless it's a very high profile transaction (i.e. Walter White selling pounds of meth) - then it might be in hundreds just to save space.
Casiquire@reddit
American cash isn't all the same color anymore--hundreds are blue, twenties are green, tens are yellow, singles and fives are the same. The shades are more subtle than cash from other countries but it's enough to be able to tell the amount at a glance. Not everyone will watch for it though.
atomicCape@reddit
Not usually, and it's often intentional, since putting prices on screen immediately dates your story and is hard to ignore even 5 years later. Kids getting excited over nickels has some retro appeal, but the price of a used car in 2005 isn't generally what people want to tell a story about.
rawbface@reddit
It's more subtle, but our bills do have different colors to them, a different president on the face, different buildings on the back, security stripes, differences in proportion, etc. We can tell the difference between different bills at a glance.
Grishbear@reddit
That hasnt been true for a while. Different bills do have different colors, but they are not as vibrant as other currencies.
$1 - green (white) $2 - green (white) $5 - purple $10 - orange $20 - green/yellow $50 - pink $100 - teal
Only the $1 and $2 bills have the old style green ink on whitish paper. All the others have colored paper.
Weird_Squirrel_8382@reddit
If the money has a paper band around it you can guess by the size. It's why "stacks" and "bands" are slang for large amounts of money.
Poi-s-en@reddit
I handle large amounts of mixed cash for work everyday. I can separate them by color fairly easily.
20s are green 10s are yellow-green 5s are purple-green 1s are white-green
It’s not a big enough difference that I would expect someone else to be able to.
ExternalTelevision75@reddit
Yes, there’s different faces in the bills, so yes, we can tell a difference, but within the past 20 years or so, most American money is changing color to enhance anti-counterfeiting and enable the vision impaired folks out there… 100- blue, 50-pink, 20- green, 5- pink, 1- green
thomasjmarlowe@reddit
If they’re playing monopoly yes
sneezhousing@reddit
On screen? No unless they are close enough. In our hands takes seconds
pikkdogs@reddit
Depends on how its done it could be easier than others. But, I would say we have a pretty good guess each time what denomination it is.
AliMcGraw@reddit
It's against the law in the US for prop currency to be too accurate, because it serves as an aid to counterfeiters. Also because people steal it from set and immediately begin passing it as real.
So a lot of prop currency is deliberately pretty bad, and I think we're all just used to it. I also don't spend a lot of time going, "wait! That's not a real credit card number!" It's an on-screen gesture to show me that this 10-year-old has a credit card or this 30-year-old is paying for his dinner with scrounged and crumpled bills and a couple of coins or this guy robbed a bank or whatever.
Cowboywizard12@reddit
Not by sight.
Also funfact in the U.S fake money for movie production has to take steps to have the fake money not fall under counterfeiting laws
getElephantById@reddit
You can tell what bill it is at a glance, because they all have different designs. But you can't necessarily see enough if you're just looking at someone flashing a wad of cash quickly.
Gold_Telephone_7192@reddit
If the amount of money is important to the plot, the movie or show will make it clear. Either you’ll be able to read the numbers or they’ll mention the amount.
n00bdragon@reddit
I sell things on the side as a hobby. It's a mostly cash business. I cannot for the life of me tell how much money someone is handing me and would not trust myself to get it right anyway until I count it back to them. I do not look at the president's face. I only read the numbers in the corner.
Salarian_American@reddit
I can't tell at all what's literally in someone's hand when they're handed a wad of bills, unless the shot is close enough that you can see the numbers or the portraits on them
-Boston-Terrier-@reddit
If I can see the bills then yeah, of course.
Curmudgy@reddit
I can't imagine caring. If it's important to the plot, they'll make mention. Otherwise, it doesn't matter and trying to figure it out is a distraction.
judgingA-holes@reddit
I don't think any of us really care how much a character is getting. We just know that they are getting money, and that's enough knowledge for us. lol
Leverkaas2516@reddit
We don't struggle, but if you just hand a few bills over, or keep them unsorted in a wallet, or hold them folded in any way, it's impossible to tell whether them apart. The only one that's noticeably different is the new $100, which is bluish instead of greenish.
For instance, my dad handed me some bills folded in half to cover his share of an expensive restaurant the other day. There were four $20 bills, but it could as easily have been a $20 and two $5 bills or even $20 and three $1 bills. I didn't care how much he gave me, but if it had mattered, like if I was selling a used item to a stranger in the police station parking lot after meeting on craigslist, I would have unfolded the bills and counted them one by one. There's no other way to know how much is in a wad of cash.
Apocalyptic0n3@reddit
I don't think I've ever cared enough to check. It rarely matters to the story and if it does, they'll verbalize it. It's just a prop otherwise.
avinaut@reddit
No, of course not. It's all fake prop money in shows, usually made to look like the 20th century cotton paper that really did all look and feel the same except for the faces and numbers. Nowadays the designs give a lot more cues. 100s have a blue stripe and are crisper, for instance.
Thereelgerg@reddit
Sometimes
Both_Painter_9186@reddit
Honestly I think I use actual cash like 3-4 times a year.
CraftyFraggle@reddit
I don’t think we often need to pay attention to the bills being passed on TV. Usually if the amount matters, there’ll be other clues in the scene or dialog like a reference to Grant (on our $50 bill) or Jackson (on our $20 bill), or a mention of the price for goods or services, etc.
On rare occasions, the bills might be filmed in such a way that their numerical value is visible (they’re pretty big numbers on the corner of the bill), etc.
But most if the time it just doesn’t matter.
Impedimentita@reddit
If it’s a crime show, it’s hundreds. If it’s something else, they’ll tell us if it’s important.
Diabolik900@reddit
In the kind of context you describe, if the filmmakers thought it was important that you know exactly how much money is being handed over they would do something to make it clear, whether that’s through dialogue or close-ups or some other technique. Otherwise, no, I probably wouldn’t know exactly how much is being handed over.
nothinnews@reddit
Large fake bills help to.
DoubleBack9141@reddit
Not every American bill is green unless it's something like 20+ years old. 1s, 5s, and 20s are green, but 10s are yellowish, 50s are brownish and 100s are blue.
DOMSdeluise@reddit
Unless you are close enough to see detail like whose face is on the money or denomination, no. All bills are the same color and size, so you cannot distinguish them from far away.
catatethebird@reddit
American cash isn't all the same color. $1s are og green, $5s are purple, $10s are yellow, $20s are green/yellow, $50s are pinkish, and $100s are blue.
That said, there's some law about showing real money in movies, so it's usually fake, and you often can't tell, really depends more on the shot than the color.
this_curain_buzzez@reddit
It’s rarely relevant to the plot, and if it is the characters will talk about it.
moosieq@reddit
I probably couldn't tell if I see someone just holding a wad of bills.
The funny thing is our bills have slowly become more colorful if you compare them to the older versions.The 1s and 2s are still pretty much that classic green color but the other bills have slight tints and colorful watermarks as anti-counterfeiting measures. Off the top of my head 100s are blue, 5s are pink, 10s are orange. I'm sure in a few more generations they'll be even more colorful.
shibby3388@reddit
Our money actually is slightly different colors. A ten has a slightly different hew than a 20.
VinceP312@reddit
Generally the magnitude of the money is conveyed by context.
Bills greater than $100 haven't been printed for public circulation in quite some time.
I think the last time I saw a $500 bill (?) was when I was a kid in the 80s.
So if it's a scene with a stripper with a stack, its going to be 1, 5, 10s.
A drug dealer, 100s or 20s.
Someone at a coffee shop , a single 1,5,10,20.
ATMs generally spit out 20s , 50s, or 100s. So it's only when you're buying things that you get the lower than 20 bills.
Round-Lab73@reddit
If you handle it every day it's easy. It's true that the color coding is both more subtle and more recent than in a lot of other currencies, but we also go by the portrait on the front and the building or seal on the back, and of course the number is written in several places
violahonker@reddit
Modern hundred dollar bills are blue, not green. But the vast vast majority of transactions happen in twenties, which are greenish. There are very minor differences in colour between the different denominations in the US, and so most of the time we can’t really tell.
CaptainAwesome06@reddit
Not really, but sometimes context clues help.
There's a minority of Americans that feel US currency should be changed for better accessibility. Like different sized bills or different colors, to better aid in identifying denominations. I'd assume most Americans just don't think about it.
Illustrious_Try478@reddit
From a distance, no. While I was watching Boardwalk Empire I would see Nucky Thompson pull that big wad of cash out of his pocket and peel a few bills off to buy his way out of some problem, and I could never tell if they were 10s or 20s, or 100s.
rockettaco37@reddit
Not exactly, but we can generally estimate the amount
Calm-Maintenance-878@reddit
In older stuff, I can see how that could be visually iffy. If you can’t see the numbers, you can’t really confirm what the green bills are. In more modern stuff there is a high emphasis on blue bills, because they are $100 and that makes it much easier to recognize the denomination. So my answer is I don’t struggle, but I think it’s easier for everyone to struggle less with blue bills in regulation.
1MrE@reddit
Usually it either doesn’t matter the exact amount or it was previously disclosed in an earlier scene.
brizia@reddit
I work in banking, so I can roughly guesstimate as long as know what the bill is.
BracedRhombus@reddit
It doesn't matter.
Tron_35@reddit
We can only tell if they show the bill clear enough to see the number, I cant just look at a blurry stack of bills and know which is which.
fasterthanfood@reddit
I can’t tell as easily as I could if the color belonged to only one denomination. But the camera often gets close enough that I can tell, especially because in a movie and TV context, it’s almost always either $20 or $100 bills.
(In real life, if I see a bill, it’s almost always $1, $5, or $20, so I have lots of experience spotting the differences between those.)
DrMindbendersMonocle@reddit
There are numbers on the bills and you can also differentiate by the face on the bill. Usually, the exact amount isn't that important to the plot and you need to know is that thete was a transaction in cash
Saskita@reddit
Usually we see the number
Cheap_Coffee@reddit
Our $20 bills aren't bright red.
Buzzer_wubbadubdub@reddit
We dont struggle at all. Yeah, theres usually four big numbers on every corner of the bill that tells you the dollar’s value.