Inverted mask (cutout)?

hi, i have had a look around on the forums to see if I could find a solution but couldnt find one.

Is it possible now with flash 8 to create a mask that cuts out from an object?
I thought the blend (Subtract) options might do it but no.

What i want to do is have a background image (which will be several loaded images), with a block of colour over them, and then some text which is cut out of the coloured block to reveal some of the image below.

I dont want to have to copy/duplicate the image movieclips to create this effect.

is it possible (even with bitmapData)?

thanks