About The Director Metaphor - MACROMEDIA DIRECTOR MX-USING DIRECTOR MX Use Manual

About the Director metaphor

The Director user interface is designed around a movie metaphor. Each project you create can be
thought of as a movie, with a cast of characters, a score, a stage where the action takes place, and a
director (you, the author). Each media element that appears in your movie (sound, video, images,
text, buttons, and so on.) can be thought of as a member of the movie's cast. In Director, the Cast
window is where you view the list of media elements that appear in your movie.
As with a real movie, each Director movie has a score. However, the score of a Director movie
contains more than just music. The Score window in Director contains information about when
and where each of the cast members will appear on the Stage. The Score describes the action that
will happen in the movie.
The action in a Director movie takes place in a window called the Stage. To create a Director
movie, you add cast members (media elements) by creating them in Director or importing them.
Next, you place them on the Stage as sprites. A sprite is simply a copy of a cast member that
appears on the Stage. Then, you refine the actions of the sprites by editing them on the Stage
or in the Score.
In this tutorial, you will practice each of these steps to create your own Director movie.
54 Chapter 2
Score
Cast window
Stage