Interactivity and Scripting

Abstract

Producing movies that grab the attention of an audience is not just an art, but a necessity in today’ global market. Products sell when a client is attracted to them. Once fascinated, the client often wants to find out more about the product. For this to occur, dialogue needs to take place between the movie (that is, the product) and the user (that is, the client). Flash provides for this so that, instead of playing frames and scenes sequentially, it allows for users to interact with a movie. The mode of interaction can take several forms in terms of buttons placed within a scene to select from a list and hence the movement to a particular frame, or through assigning actions to frames. The latter, as we will see in this chapter, is achieved through a scripting language that Macromedia refers to as ActionScript. The desired action takes place when a particular event is activated.