Lang Thompson writes: >Are changeover cues still used on many prints in the US? Thinking about it, possibly not. A few months ago I had to show a print of 'Mousehunt'. After checking it on the bench, I saw that the dots were there, but that the print was otherwise NFG because of a deep lateral emulsion scratch on reel 3 and no DTS timecode on reels 5 and 6. The print was no. USA something or other. I rejected it, sent it back and got a replacement print which was a print UK something or other. There was no time to check it before the first show, and so I had to take reel 1 straight out of the tin and onto the screen. Because I had checked the previous copy for dots, I assumed they would be on the replacement one. They weren't and I missed the first changeover as a result. After enquiring with UIP, I was told that print no. USAXXX means that the print has been imported from the US, ultrasonically cleaned, rewashed and polished and then put into distribution here in the UK. Print no. UKXXX means that it was actually made by a UK lab (this usually happens when the version released in the UK is significantly different, possibly thanks to the British Board of Film Censors or whatever, and it is cheaper to make new prints than to faff about cutting up the imported ones, inserting new sections and so on). Since that incident I have found that, without exception, USA prints have no cue dots (except where a previous projectionist has put them on using an engraver) whereas UK ones invariably do. Actually it is very rarely that I show a film on single reels: but this was a one-show-only Saturday matinee and I prefer to do those that way than have to spend an hour or so stripping the print off the platter afterwards. Leo Leo Enticknap email: [log in to unmask] ---- For past messages, visit the Screen-L Archives: http://bama.ua.edu/archives/screen-l.html