Multi layer buttons question

hello everyone, thanks for reading this.

i have a bunch of standard rollover buttons i made using movie clips with simple onActionscript.

now what i’m trying to do is group all the buttons basically into one big button but only for the purpose of color or alpha changes when the mouse is over the menu group.

basically i want all the buttons to get brighter when the mouse is over the menu area, but still have the individual buttons shift color as they do now.

i think it has something to do with depths but i havn’t been able to figure it out. i added _root lines to everything, but that didn’t help. i kinda of understand its looking for the actions in the new mc instead of the one nested inside that, but i dunno how to reach the nested lines of code. kind of a beginner here…

does that makes any sense? or is there an easier way to do this?

appreciate any ideas, thanks.

:-/