Show an image with onclick

I want an image to appear when I start the movie, as a transition. The idea is for a completely black image to fade into the screen upon selection, and then to launch the movie.

So the questions are:

a) how do I make an image appear with onclick?
b) how do I animate that image?
c) how do I make the SendClick(8) action only occur once the animation of the image has finished?

I have no idea on how to do it. Closest is I found "Notification(header,message[,time,image])" on the wiki, but I haven't gotten it to display anything with the code below, plus it doesn't seem to have much space for customization... unless the "Notification" is reliant on some .xml file which has the specifications for how a "Notification" appears (size, position, animation, etc), in which case I wonder what .xml file would that be?

                <control type="grouplist">

                    <control type="button" id="97">

                        <onclick>Notification(test header,test message[,5000,views/black_background.png])</onclick>

                        <onclick>SendClick(8)</onclick>

                        <onup>Back</onup>

                        <ondown>Back</ondown>

                        <onleft>Back</onleft>

                        <onright>Back</onright>

                    </control>

                </control>