Working with Movie Clips > Working with movie clips: Overview

Working with movie clips: Overview

A movie clip is a mini Flash movie: it has its own Timeline and properties. A movie clip symbol in the Library may be used multiple times in a Flash movie; each use is called an instance of the movie clip. Movie clips can be nested inside each other. To distinguish instances from each other, you can assign each instance an instance name.

Any object can be placed on the Timeline of a movie clip, including other movie clips. Movies that are loaded into the Flash Player using loadMovie are also mini Flash movies. Each movie clip, loaded movie, and the main Timeline in a Flash movie are objects with properties and methods that can be manipulated by ActionScript to create complex, nonlinear animation and powerful interactivity.

You control movie clips using actions and MovieClip object methods. Actions and methods can be attached to frames or buttons in a movie clip (frame and button actions), or to a specific movie clip instance (clip actions). Actions in a movie clip can control any Timeline in a movie. To control a Timeline you must address it by using a target path. A target path indicates the location of the Timeline in the movie.

You can also turn a movie clip into a "smart" clip; a movie clip with ActionScript that can be reprogrammed without using the Actions panel. Smart clips make it easy to pass objects with complicated ActionScript logic from a programmer to a designer.