Prop phone app for film: the money screens, working on a real phone

First, the line you don’t cross

A prop is for the camera. Everything on this page is a screen for an audience that knows it is watching fiction: a short film, a series, a music video, an advert, a sketch, a school project. Money screens are also the props most likely to be carried off a set and used for real: a balance shown to a landlord, a payment screen held up to someone selling a car. Shown to a real person as real, that is fraud whichever tool drew it. Our acceptable use policy prohibits it, and accounts that do it are closed. None of these apps can send, receive or prove a payment, and nothing they show is a record to hand to anyone.

Two kinds of prop phone app

Search for a prop phone app and most of what you find does the phone’s own jobs: a text thread, an incoming call, a video call, a lock screen filling with notifications, a social feed. Several are built for film sets, and for those scenes they are the right tool. Pozer makes none of those screens. If your scene is a text or a call, go to what to use instead.

The other kind is the screen a plot turns on when the story is about money: the balance she checks before deciding, the payment he sends at the table, the trade that goes wrong, the first sale. That is what Pozer makes. There are ten apps, each an original design with no real company’s name, logo or artwork. You fill one in in a browser, publish it and get a link. Opened on a phone and added to its home screen, it runs fullscreen from its own icon, under the name you gave it. Building an app, installing it and filming it are free.

Find your screen by the script beat

Start from what the script says happens, not from a list of apps.

• “She checks her balance, and it isn’t enough.” The payment app, Cash App-style. Its Money tab prints Cash balance in large figures over a masked Account and Routing line, with Savings and a goal below.
• “He pays her back at the table.” The same app. The round $ in the bottom bar opens a keypad, and Pay ends in a receipt that stays on screen until someone taps Done.
• “The stock he bought on a tip doubles.” The trading app, Robinhood-style: Investing, a chart, Holdings and Buying power. Buy and Sell sit on each holding’s page and fill an order with a receipt.
• “The coin moons, or the account is wiped out.” The crypto wallet, Phantom-style, has a total over a list of tokens, with Send and Receive. The exchange is Binance-style. For leverage, the futures terminal, Hyperliquid-style, has Buy / Long and Sell / Short under a chart, and a LIQ line on it for the liquidation price.
• “The first order arrives during dinner.” The store dashboard, Shopify-style. Sale alerts reach the phone as real notifications, titled with your Store name and reading like “New order #1285 · $84.37 · 2 items”. When the app is opened, that order is at the top of Orders.
• “The channel finally pays.” The creator dashboard, YouTube Studio-style: Total subscribers, Estimated revenue and an Earn tab.
• “The founder checks revenue at 3 a.m.” The subscription dashboard, RevenueCat-style, has cards for MRR, Revenue and Active Subscriptions. For someone selling a workbook or a preset pack, the creator sales dashboard, Gumroad-style, opens on an Available balance.
• “She bets the rent on the election.” The prediction market, Polymarket-style. A buy prints a receipt with Cost and To win, and the position appears on Portfolio.

All ten are on the templates page.

What the actor can do with it

A picture of a screen can only be looked at; a prop app can be played. The working rule: whatever has to be true when the scene starts, you type in the editor. Whatever changes during the take, the actor does by tapping, and it happens the same way every time.

Take the rent scene on the payment app. You type a Cash balance of 2,310.44 and a history in Activity. On camera the actor taps the $, keys 1850, types a name in the To (optional) field and taps Pay. A tick draws itself over the word CONFIRMED, then −$1,850 and, under it, Balance $460.44. Below that the receipt lists Status, To, Method, Fee, Reference and Date, and it waits. After Done, the Money tab reads $460.44, and Activity has a new first line: the name, Payment sent · Now, and −$1,850.

Two things to know before the day. The Date on the receipt comes from the phone’s own clock, printed as Today at the minute of the tap, so it agrees with the status bar in the same shot. And the app won’t invent money. A payment larger than the balance sends only what the balance holds, and from an empty balance the sheet comes back NOT SENT, with Not sent · No balance on the receipt. If the script needs a payment that fails, that is the one it can show.

The other apps work the same way. On the trading app, Buy on a holding’s page prints FILLED over a receipt with Symbol, Side, Shares, Avg. price and Cost. On the store dashboard, an unfulfilled order has a Fulfill items button that turns its badge to Fulfilled. The guides to a stock app you can film, a futures app prop for film and a sales dashboard for a scene go through each.

Put it on the hero phone

1. Build it in the editor, on a computer or a phone. Give App name (home screen) and App icon the fictional brand your film uses: a shot of the home screen will catch both.
2. Press Create home-screen app and confirm your email with the six-digit code. The app goes live at its own link, free, with a QR code beside it.
3. Open the link on the phone the actor will hold; pointing its camera at the QR code is quickest. On iPhone, use Safari, then Share and Add to Home Screen. On Android, use Chrome and choose Install app. From the icon it opens fullscreen.
4. In the installed app your Edit button is hidden. Hold two fingers still on the screen and it returns for five seconds; one finger never brings it up, so an actor’s thumb can’t put it in shot. On iPhone the first hold asks you to sign in, so do it before the shoot day.
5. It is a web app, with no offline copy. Open it where there is signal and leave it open.

Keep it in continuity

• Reset between takes. Payments and trades made in a take are saved on that phone, rehearsals included, and survive closing the app. Before each take, hold two fingers on the screen, tap Edit, then Reset to published values.
• Change the story in Edit, not by tapping. The Edit sheet opens on the figures you published, not on what the last take left behind, and Save changes puts the new figures on that phone straight away.
• Switch Live prices off on the crypto apps. The wallet, the exchange and the futures terminal can mark coins at the market price, refreshed about once a minute, so their figures drift between takes. Each has a Live prices switch, and with it off the screen holds what you typed. The other seven apps have no price feed.
• Set the phone for the scene. The status bar is the phone’s own. If the top of the screen is in shot, set the clock for the scene and keep the battery level steady between setups.
• One app per character. Each published app is separate, with its own link, name, icon and numbers. Two characters paying each other are two apps on two phones; a time jump can be two apps on one phone.
• Name it before you install it. An iPhone keeps the name and icon the app had when it was added to the home screen.

Clearance: what is on the glass

Each app is an original design. Labels such as Cash App-style only say what kind of app it resembles: none carries a real company’s name, logo or artwork, and none is connected to one. What you add is yours to clear, like anything else in frame: the app’s name and icon, the tag and initials, the names in a history, a store or channel name. Invent them, and check that an invented handle isn’t somebody’s real one. A real company’s logo is against our policy.

On the day: getting the screen to read

• Brightness up, auto-brightness off. Many phone screens dim by flickering faster than the eye can follow, and a camera can catch it as dark bands. A bright screen is the first fix.
• If bands remain, change the shutter. Step the shutter speed a little at a time while watching a monitor until they stop.
• Wavy or rainbow patterns are moiré. Move the camera slightly closer or further, or tilt the phone a few degrees.
• The glass is a mirror. Tilt it until it reflects something dark, and wipe it before every setup.
• Auto-lock off, Do Not Disturb on. Not airplane mode: the app needs a connection if it has to reload. If the scene uses the app’s own alerts, leave Do Not Disturb off and silence the other apps instead, because it holds those alerts back too.

The guide to filming a phone screen has the full method.

If the fake app your film needs isn’t a money app

Then it isn’t on Pozer today: there is no message thread, call screen, social feed, dating app, map or inbox here. Filmmakers get those onto a phone in four ways.

• A prop phone app built for it. Several exist for texts, calls and notifications. The ones aimed at sets let someone off camera cue each message from a second device.
• A screen recording, played back. Record the screens you need as a video and play it fullscreen while the actor mimes along. It costs nothing, but the timing is fixed.
• A clickable prototype. Design tools that make app prototypes can show drawn screens on a phone and move between them on a tap, which suits an invented app with a few screens.
• Replacement in post. Shoot the phone showing tracking markers and composite the screen afterwards. It gives full control, and it is hardest when fingers cross the screen.

The money screens have a limit of their own: all ten are drawn for a phone held upright. A wall of trading monitors, or a bank’s website on a laptop, is a job for a screen-graphics designer.

What it won’t do

1. Texts, calls and feeds, as above.
2. Take a cue from off camera. Alerts arrive at moments the app picks inside the gap you set, as short as ten seconds. The payment app has none: it will not announce that money arrived.
3. Open without a connection, or fill a monitor or a laptop.
4. Copy a real bank, broker or exchange.
5. Stand in for a real balance or payment in front of anyone. That is the line at the top.

Free apps carry SIMULATED · POZER.COM in fine print on screen and on every receipt, free alerts end in SIMULATED, and Pro at US$12.99/mo removes both. On a free app the fine print can be tapped, and a tap opens the upgrade offer, so rehearse the thumb away from it. For a scene built on a payment, the guide to filming a money-sent scene has the shot list. Otherwise, start with the payment app.