Hello Processing Guru's,

I am an artists who has been recently introduced to the amazing arduino/processing community and have a big question to ask.  I am creating a digital mutoscope which uses a hand crank to control the forward/reverse direction and speed of three short stop motion animation videos. 

I am seeking advice on how I can get the hand crank to communicate with the video so the viewer is allowed to control the direction and speed.  I am hoping that each click of the hand crank will allow a single frame to move.  The videos will run at 24 frames per second, although this is still flexible.

Any suggestions are greatly appreciated as I am still in the "knowing enough to be dangerous" stage of arduino/processing communication.

Thank you  kindly in advance.