# Access shapes within a MovieClip?

**URL:** https://forum.kirupa.com/t/access-shapes-within-a-movieclip/326371
**Category:** flash
**Created:** [December 9, 2011, 7:31am UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/access-shapes-within-a-movieclip/326371 "2011-12-09T07:31:52Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![travisschau](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b38774/32.png) [@travisschau](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/travisschau)
#### Post date: [December 9, 2011, 7:31am UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/access-shapes-within-a-movieclip/326371/1 "2011-12-09T07:31:52Z")

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Hello and thanks for any help!  
Here’s my basic issue: I have a movieclip, with several hundred shapes inside of it that I drew with the brush tool.

I want to convert each one of those shapes to a movieclip.  
I could individually select each one by hand, convert it to movieclip, and then have a massive library. That would be a hassle to do, and really difficult to manage going forward and making changes.

I’d rather do something like

```auto

for each (var curShape:Shape in myMC)
 {
    var newMC:MovieClip = new MovieClip
    addChild(newMC);
    newMC.addChild(curShape);
}

```

and then I could access them as MCs henceforth (for collision detection, mainly).  
That code does not work though!

Any ideas on how to convert every individual shape inside a MovieClip into a MovieClip using AS3?

Thanks so much for any help!  
-Travis