I am having trouble with actionscript. I am making a photo gallery and my
buttons and layout are just dandy everything's looking fine. The buttons do
nothing, and i know i need actionscript to make it work but i have no idea how
to even begin. I have what i want the buttons to show made in a movie clip I
just need to know how to how to have the clip come up and be centered when
clicked. Please help me.

depends on whether you are using AS3 or AS2.

either way, however, you're looking to work with "event handlers"

onRelease()
onPress()
onRollOver()
onRollOut()
etc...

so in AS2, if you have a button named "test_b" on your main timeline, you
would assign an action like this...

test_b.onRelease = function() {
trace("this is a test to see if this button works.");
}

AS3's event handlers are a little different.