Trouble referencing instance name from different frame

Question

Newbie here. All my code is in frame 1 and is working fine except for one onRelease event. In frame 20 (labeled "gameOver") there is a button which has an instance name of btnQuit. I want that button to do something onRelease. The code works fine if I put it inside the button like so: on (release) {......etc. But I would like to have all my code in frame 1 in a timeline called "scripts".
I think I'm missing something to reference the button's instance name (maybe a "_root", or "this", or some of those things that I don't fully understand).
Here's the code that works when put in frame 20 inside the button, but not in frame 1 in a different timeline:
btnQuit.onRelease = function () {
  // Calculate elapsed time
  var now = new Date()
  var elapsedTime = now - startTime; // startTime set beforehand
  var strTime:String = Math.floor(elapsedTime / (1000 * 60 * 60)) + ":" +
   (Math.floor(elapsedTime / (1000 * 60)) % 60) + ":" +
   (Math.floor(elapsedTime / (1000)) % 60);
  // Send data to PHP
  dataOut = new LoadVars();
  if ( finalScore > 89 ) {
    dataOut.passed = '1';
  } else {
    dataOut.passed = '0';
  dataOut.score = finalScore;
  dataOut.time_spent = strTime;
  dataOut.send("lesson.php","_self","POST");

Answer 1

The button has to be in the presence of the code when the code is executed.  So you either need to have that button in frame 1 or have that code in frame 20.  You could have it in frame 1 and turn it invisible until frame 20 if that is an option.