Invisible Flash Movieclip

[Reliable]

I've instantiated my movie clips and set visible to false. I even set up the linkage properties, assigned variables, and set alpha to 0, but I can still see them. they are on the stage in frame 1 but I want them invisible until told otherwise.

Overall, instead of using the timeline to fade movie clips in and out at certain intervals I'd e like to transition that task to AS 3.0 How do I accomplish this? Thanks for your help.

[Reliable]

Never mind. Solved my own problem. I was importing the PSD incorrectly.

I had a gradient layer that went from blue to transparent and was under text but over the other pictures. When I imported I was importing the gradient layer as a flattened image which merged it with the other pictures underneath. I need to import it as a bitmap with editable layer styles.

I'm using Flash CS4, by the way...for those who may run across the same or a similar problem.