00:00From the 1980s to the 2010s, video stores were a ubiquitous part of the American retail landscape.
00:12Videos were available to rent nearly everywhere.
00:15In mom-and-pop stores, chain stores, electronic stores, even supermarkets and gas stations.
00:21During this time, the video store became equally common as a location in hundreds and hundreds of films and television shows.
00:30These fictionalized moments on screen are now the only recorded archive of the lifespan of the video store.
00:36They show video stores as places where anything can happen.
00:40Comedy, drama, action, romance, horror or violence.
00:45These depictions evolved over the years.
00:48As did our notions of what the video store was, what function it served in our lives and what this dynamic said about our relationship to renting movies.
01:00Today, video stores on screen exist only in period pieces, reminders of an industry that once seemed stable and now is all but extinct.
01:14This is the story of the video store, told through these time capsules.
01:19The story of what they were, how they flourished, how the filmmakers depicting video stores became complicit in their demise and what happened next.
01:30This is the story of the birth, life, death and afterlife of the video store.
01:40They used to be everywhere, in our lives and on our screens.
