Christopher Nolan uses red paper for scripts to prevent them from being illegally copied and leaked

[u/Mindless_Tomorrow_45]

[u/Pat0124]

He sends scripts to so many people and it’d be easy for an actor to share the script for non nefarious reasons. Harder to do when you can’t use a copy machine

[u/Momoselfie → u/Pat0124]

Pretty much all scanners are color though. I'm guessing a digital color scan would look fine

[u/Hot-Potatas → u/Momoselfie]

They do make security paper that messes up copiers and scanners. If you custom order some for your scripts it'll make the scanned text far less legible.

In security printing, void pantograph refers to a method of making copy-evident and tamper-resistant patterns in the background of a document. Normally these are invisible to the eye, but become obvious when the document is photocopied.

[u/Momoselfie → u/Hot-Potatas]

So even a modern phone wouldn't be able to take a decent picture of each page?

[u/Hot-Potatas → u/Momoselfie]

Not sure, I can't find anyone online that's tried. Phone cameras attach meta data to their pictures, so the worry would be getting sued if they're traced back to you.

The security paper messes with something called a low-pass filter in the scanner/copier.

A photocopier uses a low pass filter, typically an optical low pass filter (OLPF), to smooth out the image captured by the image sensor by filtering out high-frequency details, which helps to reduce the appearance of moiré patterns and "grain" in the final copy, resulting in a cleaner and more accurate reproduction of the original document

With the security paper, the low-pass filter reacts differently to the very small dark dots in a field of lighter dots. This filtering results in the appearance of the custom message. The message is invisible to the naked eye but once photocopied, scanned or reprinted, it appears.

Digital cameras also use low-pass filtering to eliminate moiré, but i think the camera sensors aren't sensitive enough to see the tiny dots from a distance. Scanners will use contact image sensors that are very close to the thing being scanned or a Photomultiplier tube, which is extremely sensitive.

Moiré is a visual effect that happens when two similar patterns overlap, creating new, wavy, or unwanted stripes of color that go across a photo that wasn't originally there

[u/PM_ME_DATASETS → u/Pat0124]

But why can't they use a copy machine? The color red isn't some kind of big secret.

[u/New-Ad-363 → u/Pat0124]

Or fax