Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Reused prints

This is topic Reused prints in forum Film Handlers' Forum at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Jonathan Althaus (Member # 5042) on 01-28-2010, 05:02 PM:

Not sure if this has happened to anyone before, but its a first for me. Every 6 months we do a double feature kids show for a local kids group and they always want Bee Movie and Over The Hedge. We opened both of these prints originally, but never received the same print twice, until now. Our copy of Bee movie was our 3rd copy during initial run, print #5014. I found it highly unlikely that we could get a print back like this. Any other crazy situations like this?

Posted by Martin McCaffery (Member # 37) on 01-28-2010, 05:38 PM:

I have it all the time with the kids shows. Particularly if they hold the print at the depot.

30 years ago when theatres ran more rep, it was pretty common to get the same print time after time. Even now with rep, you can request the print#

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 01-28-2010, 06:24 PM:

When the run is over they don't save every copy. Usually they only save a couple at each depot. The odds are actually very good on repertory prints that you will get the same print twice.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 01-28-2010, 07:18 PM:

quote:
Our copy of Bee movie was our 3rd copy during initial run,

Please tell us that you're a big multiplex and had 3 prints...not that you destroyed the first two! [Eek!]

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 01-28-2010, 09:33 PM:

This happens all the time at festivals. Most of the films will only have one or two prints, and many different festivals have similar programming policies and often play the same titles. Anyone who works at multiple festivals will see the same prints.

It's rarer with mainstream titles, but I have occasionally run across a print with my handwriting on it that I may have handled several years previously.

Posted by Jonathan Althaus (Member # 5042) on 01-28-2010, 09:58 PM:

No, Mike we don't destroy prints here, not since I've taken over anyways. We had 3 prints of Bee in a 15-screener. I don't think I've had to request a single new print unless it was used when we received it in the 3 years I've been here.

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 01-30-2010, 12:22 AM:

Back in the late 70's to mid 80's when "Rocky Horror" was the king of midnight showings, I think our SLC depot had only four copies of that print.

For every time we'd bring that show back, it came in the same cans, same print number and the way I rewound the print back on the shipping reels was the same.

Posted by Jim Cassedy (Member # 4115) on 01-30-2010, 06:53 AM:

Every April the theater I was at would run the
Clark Gable - Jeanette MacDonlad classic "SAN
FRANCISC0" (1936) to commorate the anniversary
of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.(4/18/1906)

It was a beautiful print! (Change-overs only!!!)
Every year I'd get the same print back, still
with the same tape I'd used to tape down the
leaders the previous year and with the handwritten
reel numbers I'd marked the leaders with several
years ago.

Posted by Richard P. May (Member # 3598) on 01-30-2010, 10:54 AM:

This was probably the Turner library print, and the only one available. I'm glad to hear it stayed in good condition.

Posted by Edward Havens (Member # 4715) on 01-30-2010, 11:19 AM:

I got the same print of Mississippi Burning at two different locations, six months apart. First at the 41st Avenue Playhouse in Capitola CA when the movie came out, then the print went to a theatre in San Diego and then back to me in San Jose, after I had been promoted to GM and transferred to a dollar house in San Jose.