As help!

Okay I have been trying to learn AS by myself and it is driving me crazy!

First off I am using the ‘help’ menu in FlashMX04Pro and it will give you code examples:

 
my_mc.brightnessTo(80, 3, "easeOutQuad");

But how do you apply it. That is what has been driving me insane. I know how to create an instance ‘my_mc’ but it still doesn’t work. I’m extremely interested in learning how to use ‘.tween()’ as well and I want to be knowledgeable in AS but the flash help menu is not helping. If someone can help me get started I can work from there, I just need to get this first animation to work.

Thanks