Loading external swf's

1

I’m trying to load a collection external swf’s, so I can select and play them from a single movie. I was thinking that these would all be self-contained, independent objects, but I’m finding NOT. So, couple of questions:

  1. Is there a way to do that? Where I can l load swf’s and not be concerned with scope and levels?

  2. I’ve found that if I load to an exisiting clip which was masked, it hid the off stage stuff of the loaded swf. How can I do that with createEmptyMovieClip?

  3. My external swf’s load with a transparent background. How do I retain the background of loaded swf’s?

  4. Can I determine the size of a loaded swf?

Thanks much for answers or links.