There's No Way Out of Here
| Vid | |
|---|---|
| Title: | There's No Way Out of Here |
| Creator: | Media Cannibals, Gwyneth Rhys, Jo, Nicole V. |
| Date: | Originally on Media Cannibals/Tape4, remastered in 2005 |
| Format: | VCR vid |
| Length: | |
| Music: | |
| Genre: | |
| Fandom: | Buffy, La Femme Nikita, The X-Files |
| Footage: | |
| URL: | Download from Gwyn's Vid Site (offline) |
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There's No Way Out of Here is a VCR vid by Media Cannibals. Referred to as the "doomed girls vid" when Gwyneth Rhys started working on it, this multimedia vid draws visual and situational parallels between Nikita from La Femme Nikita, Scully from The X-Files and early Buffy from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. All of the women were in untenable situations that they could not escape, and each of them had the specter of death looming over them for the work they were doing.
The bookend transitions among the three women at the beginning and end were accomplished though the use of a video mixing deck (borrowed from Katharine, employed by Sandy Herrold and Jo), which allowed one scene to be faded out while another scene was faded in; this transition technique, called a dissolve, has become commonplace with the advent of computer vidding, but back in the VCR days, it was an unusual experience and heightened the awareness of the visually parallel scenes being used.
Vidding culture uses the phrase garbage can vid for multimedia vids with many source fandoms thrown in together. It doesn't really have a word for a limited focus multimedia vid that looks at or compares and contrasts just two or three fandoms. The Media Cannibals had done more than one of these two- or three-fandom vids before There's No Way Out of Here, but none of them were as seriously drawn, or so loyal to the multiple shows' canons: There's No Way Out of Here was where they reached their height in this style.
Gwyn wrote extensively about this influential vid's history on her LJ when it was digitally remastered. It was also briefly mentioned in a discussion of women and vidding, in particular the vid Women's Work.