How to film a “money sent” scene

The money-sent moment is short on screen and fiddly to shoot: a thumb, a number, a tap, a confirmation, a face. It works when the phone behaves like a phone — the amount typed live, the sheet sliding up, the tick drawing itself — and falls apart when the screen is a still image, or when the numbers change between the wide and the close-up. This is how to shoot it with Tender, Pozer’s Cash App-style payment app, running on the phone in the actor’s hand. If it isn’t on a phone yet, the simulator guide covers setting it up.

The receipt is a prop, not proof

The screen this scene builds to — an amount, a tick and a status line marked ✓ Completed — is the one people fake to get sellers to hand things over. In your scene it’s a prop, and the audience knows it. Shown to a real person as a real payment, it’s fraud whichever tool drew it, and accounts that do it are closed; the details are in our acceptable use policy. Nothing in this app can pay anyone. The money only moves inside the phone you’re filming.

The five beats

1. The balance. The character opens the app on the Money tab. If the amount they’re about to send matters, let the audience see the balance first. The Cash balance is the largest type on the screen, so it reads even in a medium shot.
2. The decision. The thumb goes to the $ in the middle of the bottom bar, which is Pay, and the keypad sheet slides up. Hesitation belongs here, before the tap, where the audience can see the thumb.
3. The amount. The actor types it. Under the figure is a To (optional) field: a name typed there appears on the receipt and in the new Activity line, and without one the receipt reads Recipient and the line reads Payment. Pay can’t be pressed until there’s an amount, which gives an actor a natural pause.
4. The confirmation. The insert everyone remembers: the circle, the tick, the word Confirmed above the amount and the new balance under it, then the receipt lines, which are what the pause afterwards is for. On the free tier the receipt carries the SIMULATED · POZER.COM mark too; Pro removes it.
5. The aftermath. The receipt stays until someone taps Done, so hold it as long as the reaction needs. Afterwards the Money tab shows the lower balance, and Activity has a new line at the top: the name, Payment sent · Now, and the amount with a minus sign.

A shot list

• Wide or medium. The character and the phone, for geography and the decision. The screen can be soft.
• Over the shoulder. The screen readable without filling the frame: the keypad coming up, the amount appearing.
• Insert. A close-up of the thumb and the screen for the tap and the tick. Shoot it on its own, on a tripod if you can, and roll through the whole action rather than picking it up halfway.
• Reaction. The face after the tap — the payer’s, and anyone watching. Often the strongest shot in the scene.
• The other phone, if the person being paid is in the scene (see below).

Timings for the edit

The app’s animations are short, and an editor cutting around them needs to know how short. The keypad sheet slides up in 0.28 seconds. After the tap, the circle pops in over 0.42 seconds and the tick draws from 0.16 to 0.66 seconds. From then on the receipt is still until someone touches it. For the insert, roll a couple of seconds before the tap and hold at least two after it, so the tick has room to finish and the editor has somewhere to cut.

Exposure, focus and glass

A phone screen is a light source, and it’s rarely as bright as the face beside it — or as dim.

• Brightness up, auto-brightness off, so the screen doesn’t dim itself halfway through a take.
• In a dark room, go dark. The default is a light grey page with white cards, which makes the phone the brightest thing in a night scene. Set Background to a near-black and the whole screen follows — cards, text and pills — while the keypad and the receipt are a dark sheet whatever the background.
• Watch for flicker. Some cameras pick up a screen’s refresh as rolling bands. A small change of shutter speed usually clears it; check playback before you move on.
• Decide where the focus lives. Keep the screen soft in the wide and let the insert carry the numbers, or pull from the screen to the face for the reaction.
• Clean glass, no reflections. Wipe the screen and angle the phone off windows and lamps; an insert shows every fingerprint.
• Do Not Disturb on, so a real notification doesn’t slide over a fictional payment.

What changes between takes

This is where money-sent scenes go wrong, because the app remembers and the receipt never repeats itself.

• Every payment stays. The balance a take ends on is the balance the next take starts from, even after the app is closed, until a new version is published. Before each take, put two fingers on the glass and keep them still for a beat: Edit appears for five seconds, and only for you. Tap it, then Reset to published values, and the balance and Activity go back to exactly what you published. Apart from one appearance the first time the installed app opens, the button otherwise stays hidden there, and a single thumb resting on the glass never brings it back, so it can’t wander into a take. In a browser tab it stays on screen — one more reason to film the installed app.
• The reference changes every take. It’s a fresh random code for every payment — four characters, a dash, four more — so a wide from take 3 and an insert from take 5 show different references. Shoot the receipt insert in one take, or keep that line soft.
• So does the time. The Date line is the phone’s clock at the moment of the tap, and the status bar above the app shows the phone’s real time and battery. Takes an hour apart won’t match.
• Type whole amounts. The receipt headlines the exact amount, cents and all, but Activity rounds to whole units, so −$49.99 on the receipt is −$50 in the list.
• Keep the amount inside the balance. Pay more than it holds and only what’s there leaves: the receipt headlines that smaller figure, not the one the audience just watched the actor type.

The other phone

If the scene cuts to the person being paid, their phone is a second app: publish another copy of Tender with their own tag and balance. Nothing sent from the first phone reaches it. The money arriving is prepared, not performed.

In the editor, change the first line of its Activity list — the list shows in row order, so the first row is the one at the top. Set Name to the payer, Note to the reason (Rent, say) and Amount to what was sent, switch Incoming on, and type Now as When, to match the line on the payer’s phone. It shows with a plus sign in the accent colour. Make the Cash balance already include the money, and the receiver’s beat is a reaction to a screen that’s already right: open the app, tap Activity, and it’s at the top.

Don’t reach for Add money for this. Its line reads Added money, and its receipt gives the method as Standard · 1–3 days and, unless you type a name, the source as Bank account: money moved in from a bank, not a payment from a person.

Sound

The app is silent — no sound, no vibration — so the confirmation is yours to add in the edit. Use a sound of your own rather than a real payment app’s, which belongs to that company as much as its logo does.

For planning the phone’s states across a whole film, see the film prop guide.