If you need to make the screen white for a fraction of a second, you can add a non-transparent layer above all other layers. Set it invisible by default. When player dies, set layer visible, wait 0.1s, set layer invisible.
Hey man, this worked perfectly. I'm still a complete beginner and it took me a minute to get your instructions implemented to work right but I had no idea how to go about doing that, so thanks a lot, I appreciate your help and time.