Creating a custom cursor in Flash

Development work covered during lesson
In order to make my IMP more interesting I decided to create a custom cursor in Flash, which could be used within my IMP. Firstly I created the cursor in paint by using the shape tool to draw a star shape. The star shape was filled with black and I decided to keep this as I thought it was a good colour to use in my IMP because it would go well with the background and the overal theme. After I had created my custom cursor in Paint I then opened Adobe Flash Action Script 3.0 and clicked the 'file' tab, then 'new, which opened a new document. After I had done this I copied my custom cursor from paint by clicking CTRL + C and then pasted onto the new document within Flash by right clicking and then selecting paste. I also made the cursor a bit smaller by right clicking again, selecting the 'free transform tool' and then dragging the edges to make the shape as big or small as I wanted it.

After I had done this I found a website called http://www.ilike2flash.com/ which had a tutorial on how to create custom cursors in Flash, which I used to help me with creating the custom cursor. Firstly I selected the 'selection tool (V) to highlight my custom cursor on the stage and then pressed F8 to convert it to a symbol. A box then came up where I had to give the symbol a name so I called it 'custom cursor', selected 'movie clip' from the drop down box and pressed 'ok'. The next thing that I had to do was give it an instance name because this is what allows the cursor to work correctly when I code it. The instance name I gave the cursor was 'customcursor_mc' because this is the name I was going to use in the code so therefore it needed to be the same. After this I created a new layer on the timeline and called it 'Actions', then right clicked on the first frame of this layer and selected 'actions'. This then opened a blank box and I copied the code in step 6 of the custom cursor tutorial and pasted it into it. Lastly I clicked CTRL + Enter to test the cursor and it was working correctly.

How the development work fitted into the client brief
The development work fitted into the client brief because I mentioned in my brief that I wanted to add effects to my IMP in order to make it more interesting and that I was going to create a well designed front end that mirrors the theme of the films and the pictures. It was important that I did a cursor which was somewhat related to the topic in order to carry the theme throughout the IMP. Below is the section of the client brief this development work fitted into:

'I may also use sound effects in order to help portray the message of my IMP and give the reader a better understanding of what my IMP is about. Lastly I will also add effects to my IMP in order to make it a lot more interesting such as text that glows, animations etc. I will  make my own custom cursor, which will make my IMP a lot more interesting for the user.'

New skills table reference number
13