Fake apps for film and TV: how productions build phone screen graphics
Why the apps on screen phones are almost always invented, what the platforms' own rules for film and TV say, the phone numbers and web addresses reserved for fiction, how screen graphics are designed and played back, and what to put on screen when the scene is about crypto.
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Productions invent the apps on screen because showing a real one generally needs the brand's approval, which brands refuse for scenes of crime or failure, and because real screens carry real numbers, handles and addresses. The invented screen is designed to read on camera, then played live on the prop phone or added in post.
How productions make fake phone screens
Look closely at the phone in almost any film or series and the app on it does not exist. The search engine has an unfamiliar name, the messaging app has no logo you know, and the number on the contact card starts with 555. None of that is an accident. Behind it is a job, usually called screen graphics or playback, and a set of rules every production meets the first time a script says "she checks her phone".
The short version: productions invent apps because showing a real one generally takes the brand's approval, which brands refuse for the scenes drama needs most; because real interfaces carry real phone numbers, handles and addresses; and because an invented screen can be designed to read on camera. The finished graphics are then played live on the prop phone or added in post.
Why productions avoid real app interfaces
The big platforms publish their rules for film and TV. Read side by side, they work as a list of reasons to design your own app.
| Google's entertainment guidelines | Meta's Brand Resource Center | |
|---|---|---|
| Permission | "In general, you're required to get approval whenever you're using the Google brand in entertainment." Spoken mentions need none, as long as they imply no endorsement. | Film and TV scripts are on the list of uses to submit, with the relevant script pages and the asset mocked up as it will appear. |
| Uses refused | Products used for negative purposes. Its own examples: a villain using Search for "nefarious purposes", bank robbers using Maps to find their next target. Products shown failing are out too. | No approval for logos or technologies shown in connection with drugs, violence, illegal activities and similar themes. |
| How the interface must look | The current version, no invented functionality, no change to how the product looks. | Interface elements must reflect the latest version. |
| Other people's content | Google cannot license third-party content shown in its products; fiction may replace it with its own. | Displaying another person's handle or account needs that person's approval. |
For a thriller, that closes the door on most plots: the stalker, the scam, the heist, the app that crashes at the worst moment. Meta states it plainly: for film and TV, "we consider who is using our technologies and how they're being used."
So the screen gets invented. WePresent's 2023 feature on fictional interfaces notes that interfaces are sometimes designed for a show "due to copyright reasons", and points to a bogus search engine that has turned up in countless major films. When a production does use the real thing, the brand stays involved. On one streaming comedy, a graphic designer told the magazine that the show's screen graphics went to the phone maker for approval, and that a social network had to approve each of its screens before the scene was shot. The show's production designer added that the phone maker was "very insistent on the swiping and keying of phones being correct."
Phone numbers, web addresses and handles that belong to nobody
Every invented screen is full of details that look like data: a caller's number, a web address, a username, an email. Each one may belong to a real person, and viewers do try them.
- US and Canadian numbers. NANPA, the numbering administrator, keeps "the fictitious, non-working numbers, 555-0100 through 555-0199" reserved for entertainment and advertising. The other 555 numbers went back into the numbering inventory in 2016, so they no longer come with that guarantee.
- Australian numbers. The ACMA publishes landline ranges, mobile numbers and 1800 numbers reserved for TV shows, films and other creative works, which belong to no person or business.
- Web addresses and emails. RFC 2606 reserves the top-level names .test, .example, .invalid and .localhost, and IANA keeps example.com and example.org for illustrative use with no coordination needed. An email at example.com reaches no one.
- Handles and accounts. Invent them, then search each one on the platform before the shoot. Fake social media for film production follows the same rule as the phone number: if it exists, pick another.
The cost of skipping this step is on record. CBC Radio recounted how a 2003 comedy showed a pager number with no area code; people across North America dialed it hoping to reach God, people who really had that number fielded the calls, and the number was changed to 555-0123 for the DVD release. The same care applies to text story videos, which are made of exactly these details.
Designing a screen for the camera, not for a user
A real app is designed for the person holding the phone. A screen graphic is designed for a viewer who sees it for two seconds, from across a room, often out of focus. The working habits of screen graphics follow from that.
- One idea per screen. The message the audience must read, the number that changes, the alert that matters. Everything else stays quiet.
- Bigger type, fewer elements. The same show's production designer said the text "needed to be visually clear to read off a phone or device on screen".
- Plausible, not copied. The layout should feel like an app the character would own without borrowing a real app's logo, colors or layout. A lookalike of a real product is a clearance question: put it to the production before anyone designs it.
- States, not screenshots. List every state the scene needs: before, during, after, error. A scene where a balance drops needs both numbers, and an insert shot may need a third.
- Freeze what breaks continuity. Clocks, battery levels and anything that updates will differ between takes; the camera side of this is in filming a phone screen without flicker or moire.
Live on the prop phone, or added in post
| Live playback on the phone | Replaced in post | |
|---|---|---|
| What the actor sees | The real graphic, which they can tap and react to | A placeholder, or a dark or green screen |
| What the camera records | The final image, with its glow on hands and reflections | A plate to track and composite |
| Changing the screen later | Hard: it means a reshoot | Easy: swap the graphic |
| Where the cost sits | Preparation before the shoot day | Tracking and compositing, shot by shot |
Practitioners lean live when they can. A veteran playback coordinator told Pushing Pixels in 2018 that his team prefers to work "as much as we can, live on set", and described building interactive phone screens in ordinary presentation software, driven from a second phone off camera. A screen graphics designer told the same site in 2014 that even when a screen will be replaced, directors often want graphics on it so the actor reacts to something "instead of a giant green square".
On a small shoot, live playback simply means the right screen running on the actor's phone: prop device apps sold on the App Store, custom builds from playback specialists, or a web app opened full screen. If the shot has to be composited instead, phone green screen or a live screen compares the two routes for a single phone.
The crypto or money scene
Crypto scenes in movies and series come back to a few beats: the balance check, the transfer that goes through or fails, the wallet drained by a scam, the sudden windfall. Each one puts a wallet on screen, and each one runs into every rule above at once.
A real wallet app is a brand that has not approved the scene, and the scenes writers want (a scam, a theft, a ransom) are the ones brand guidelines refuse. A real wallet also shows an address, and Bitcoin.org's privacy page is blunt about what that means: "Anyone can see the balance and all transactions of any address." An address copied from a block explorer belongs to someone; put it in a heist scene and every curious viewer can look it up, the crypto version of the pager number. And a real wallet that holds the balance the script calls for means real money on set.
That is the part no real wallet can solve: it cannot appear on screen without being somebody's wallet. The crypto version of the invented app is a screen built for the scene. A larp wallet, also called a crypto wallet app simulator, is an app that shows a believable crypto wallet screen built from the balances you type in, for videos, skits, pitch decks and demos. It holds no funds and touches no blockchain. The larp wallet guide covers the term.
It behaves like any other playback asset: compose the states the scene needs, open it on the phone in the shot, and the actor taps through it live. Use a wallet name invented for the story and amounts typed for the script, and keep any real person's address off the screen. If the production wants the screen to resemble a specific real wallet app, treat it as a clearance question, not a design one. For cash in the same scene, the rules are in prop money for videos.
Where the line is
A fake app in a film is honest because the film is a film: the audience knows the search engine is invented and the 555 number rings nowhere. The same screen taken out of the story is a different object. A wallet mockup is a prop. Every number on it was typed, so it proves nothing about anyone's money, and presenting it as real holdings, as proof of funds or as a record of gains is a deception that our terms of use forbid.
My Larp Wallet is one such app: you set the wallet name, tokens and amounts, the built-in tokens follow live market prices, and the screen opens full screen on the prop phone. Treat it like any playback asset and lock the states before the shoot day.
Sources
- Google Brand Resource Center, Using Google branding in TV, film, and video, read 2026
- Meta Brand Resource Center, My Requests, read 2026
- WePresent, designing fictional UI for TV and film, 2023
- NANPA, 555 Line Numbers, read 2026
- ACMA, Phone numbers for use in TV shows, films and creative works, read 2026
- IETF, RFC 2606: Reserved Top Level DNS Names, 1999
- IANA, Example Domains, revised 2026
- CBC Radio, The real reason Hollywood uses "555" phone numbers, 2021
- Pushing Pixels, The art and craft of screen graphics (interview), 2018
- Pushing Pixels, The craft of screen graphics and movie user interfaces (interview), 2014
- Bitcoin.org, Protect your privacy, read 2026
Questions
How do movies make fake phone screens?
A screen graphics or playback team designs the app for the scene, with large type and only the states the script needs. The graphics either run live on the prop phone, so the actor can tap through them, or are composited onto a blank or marked screen in post.
Can you show a real app in a film?
Usually only with the brand's approval. Google says approval is generally required whenever its brand is used in entertainment, and Meta asks for the script pages and a mock-up of the asset. Both refuse scenes that tie their products to crime or other negative uses.
What phone numbers can you use in a movie?
In the US and Canada, 555-0100 through 555-0199, which NANPA keeps reserved for entertainment and advertising. Australia's ACMA publishes landline, mobile and 1800 numbers that belong to no one. For web addresses and emails, use the reserved example.com domain or the .example and .test names.
Should the phone screen be live on set or added in post?
Live playback gives the actor something real to react to and puts real light and reflections in the shot, but changes mean a reshoot. Replacing the screen in post keeps the graphic editable, at the cost of tracking and compositing every shot.
How do you show a crypto wallet in a movie scene?
With a screen built for the scene rather than a real wallet: an invented wallet name, typed-in amounts and no real address. A crypto wallet app simulator does this on the actor's phone. Clear any resemblance to a real wallet app with the production first.
Compose the screen instead of describing it
Your tokens, your amounts, your accent, laid out in the browser, then opened on your phone at your own address. A mockup, and we never pretend otherwise.
- Unlimited tokens, amounts and accents
- Add it to your home screen; it opens like an app
- Live market prices that keep moving
- Your own address, mylarpwallet.com/you
Cancel anytime · Secure payment by Stripe · See the wallet
Keep reading
- Guide: Larp wallet and crypto larping, explainedThe three meanings the sources confuse, where the line between a mockup and a deception falls, and what the product makes.
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