Preparing the Movie
In this task, you'll prepare the Flash movie so that it's ready for the video. The techniques should already be familiar from earlier lessons, and will become second nature over time as you use them frequently in your Flash development workflow.
1. | Open Flash 8. From the main menu, choose File > New. In the New Document dialog, choose Flash Document and click OK. |
An untitled movie opens, whose dimensions are by default 550 pixels wide by 400 pixels tall.NoteYou can see the movie dimensions in the Property inspector; if they are other than 550 x 400, click the Document Properties button in the Property inspector (the button with the pixel dimensions in it) and make the change.
2. | With nothing selected, click the Document Properties button (which indicates 550 x 400 as the present pixel dimensions). In the Document Properties dialog, change the pixel dimensions to 500 x 350. |
The video itself is only 320 x 240 pixels, so creating a 550 x 400 stage would create a lot of wasted space, rather than the tasteful frame that you want.

3. | In the timeline, click the Insert Layer button to add a new layer. |
You'll place a background in the lower layer, and you'll put the video in the upper layer.[View full size image]

4. | One at a time, double-click each layer name and rename it, naming the lower layer background and the upper layer video . |
Naming your layers meaningfully makes them much easier to use in the long run.[View full size image]

5. | Select Frame 1 of the background layer. Select File > Import > Import to Stage, and import farmers_bkg.jpg. |
A digital photo appears on the stage. It looks blurry because it's simply a background photo.[View full size image]

6. | Save the file, naming it farmers_market.fla , in the Jade Valley flash folder . |