How to put a Shockwave/Flash movie on to an IMAX screen?

Question

Is it possible to project an animated shockwave movie or Flash movie directly on to an IMAX screen if it were designed to IMAX screen specs without going through Adobe After Effects to render out a Quicktime movie?
Also why would you need to go through After Effects if it is neccessary to do this?
Thank you.

Answer 1

1) You would have to find a film converter to know for sure.  But, I imagine they will be looking for an MOV, AVI, or, probably more ideally an MPEG
2) I imagine there is, but it is likely a very expensive projector.  IMAX Digital uses the DCI format, and two projectors for projecting: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Cinema_Initiatives
3) You will likely not be able to create a 75-minute long SWF movie.  It will have to be broken down into separate animations, and then converted over to a video format and merged.
4) Though I have never seen a hard specification for it, there does seem to be a limit, and it varies depending on the version of Flash you are using.  In CS3 I have started having problems once I got to around 11000 frames (or a little less than 10 minutes at 12fps).  You will want to be creating your animation at 24, or maybe 48 FPS (both are IMAX specs), which will severely limit the length of time you can animate in a single file.
It does seem like the file length grows exponentially between versions, so CS4 should be able to handle a significantly longer file than CS3 did.  The only way to know for sure is to create-create-create, and save multiple versions of all files, save frequently, and go until Flash gives you problems.  I fear this will change depending on the specs of your computer, the version of Flash, and the complexity of the animation.