>Pop-Up Video
RHYTHM AND CLUES
WHO KNEW THAT 3.5 MILLION birds die each year crashing into windows? Or that crocodile dung and honey was an ancient Egyptian contraceptive? Almost nobody—until Pop-Up Video debuted on VH1 in December. The popular half-hour-long show annotates clips from music videos with factoid-or photo-filled balloons. Some are educational (1 percent of Sagittarians are color-blind, notes a pop-up in Des'ree's "You Gotta Be" video); others are esoteric (a popup in Prince's "7" video reveals that his high school nickname was Skippy).
The show was created by Tad Low and Woody Thompson, both 30. Low, a former MTV reporter, and Thompson, a onetime video art director, had amassed a trove of behind-the-scenes video trivia but, says Thompson, "you never saw the stuff on the screen." Now a staff of 12 takes up to a month to ferret out facts for a single video. "Directors love them," says Low. "They always call for copies." But there have been complaints. When a vintage still photo of Sheryl Crow (from her days as a backup singer in Michael Jackson's 1988 Bad tour) appeared in the Pop-Up version of her 1994 "Leaving Las Vegas" video, her rep protested. "She had huge hair," explains Thompson. "She was incredibly tacky."
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