Synopsis
Jesse & Joy's "Chocolate" turns a sweet love song into a handcrafted stop-motion fantasy. Cookies, frosting, chocolate, sugar and other confections become characters, props and shifting landscapes as the visual world follows the song's affectionate imagery. The edible figures move through playful scenes filled with romance, bright colors and whimsical transformations, while the duo's performance anchors the confectionery spectacle. Everything feels tactile and homemade, giving the video a warm, charming tone that mirrors the song's central comparison between love and chocolate.
Factoids & Trivia
- "Chocolate" was released as a single from Jesse & Joy's 2009 album "Electricidad," and the official music video appeared in 2010.
- The production used nearly 3,000 still photographs to create the stop-motion animation. The team reportedly completed only about seven seconds of finished footage during a typical day of work.
- Around 90 custom cookies were baked by hand in Mexico for use as characters and visual elements. Other materials included frosting, flour, sugar, eggs, dough and chocolate.
- The animation combined physical stop-motion with digital previsualization. Movement was planned in After Effects, then traced with the help of a projector so the physical animation could retain the smoothness of computer animation.
- Dragon Stop Motion software was used to capture the frames, with a Canon 5D Mark II serving as the camera system.
- The video's opening "Chocolate" title was one of the most difficult shots to complete because the chocolate was hard to melt without damaging the set. The crew reportedly needed several attempts before solving the problem with a small portable stove.
- The video helped establish an especially tactile visual identity for the song, since its central ingredients are not merely decorative: the cookies and sweets physically form the animated world.