A common trope in movies is the suitcase full of cash. Sometimes it’s the protagonist stumbling across it (No Country for Old Men, A Simple Plan). Sometimes it’s for ransom.
But whenever you see it, the suitcase is full of cash. A briefcase is filled right to the brim, in neat piles that all happen to add up to the correct amount. A duffel bag is bulging. Have you ever found a scene where the briefcase is filled most of the way, but not quite? No, it is always filled up 100%. Whoever is filling that briefcase must go through a lot of math to get it figured out. “Let’s see, my suitcase has these dimensions, a packet of $100 bills takes up so much space, I need to get this much total money… maybe if I replace 3 packs with 20 dollar bills instead… or get a bigger suitcase… Argh, I wish I had paid attention in Algebra II, I’m sorry Mr. Koetke!”
You can rent fake money from prop houses for scenes like this. They rent by the height of the stack – the face value of the bills doesn’t affect the price. All you really need to be convincing is a bill with the correct value on top of stack (say, a $100) and viewers will assume the whole stack is made of the same value bills. A few years ago the Treasury Department started requiring productions to print messages on the money to explicitly state that the currency was fake. This was the result of a shoot that scattered prop bills on a public street for a scene, then the extras picked the bills up at the end of the day & successfully spent them. Unintentional counterfeiting…
That is most excellent! “Hi, what do you have in a $500,000? I’m an ‘autumn’ by the way”
Perhaps there are special cash-sized briefcases, just like you can get bags designed to exactly fit in the overhead compartment or under the airline seat. You just have to go to the correct luggage store.