Wacky World of Choc Wednesdays: Chocolate Stop Motion Videos
This week’s focus is on chocolate, artistry, and technology once again, this time in the form of videos that apply stop motion animation techniques to chocolate. Chocolate lends itself well to stop motion and recent use of the technique ranges from slick pro jobs with fancy props, lighting, and the use of sophisticated software to DIY digital camera+candy+home computer work done on the cheap.
A friend of a friend passed on this whimsical video for Jesse & Joy’s “Chocolate,” directed by Carlos Lopez Estrada:
The stop motion video uses dozens of different foods, chocolate and cookies principal among them, and was put together by an incredibly artistic (and organized!) crew. It’s result is a gorgeous mix of organic materials and technological possibility. I especially love the elephant drummer and the cheery singing dairy cows. Watch the behind the scenes video for a look at how they used a torch to melt chocolate through a metal table. Don’t try this at home, kids.
The chorus of the song, first in the original Spanish, then roughly translated into English:
Nuestro amor sabe a chocolate
Un corazón de bombón que late
Nuestro amor sabe a chocolate
Oh oh oh oh ohOur love knows chocolate
A chocolate heart that beats
Our love knows chocolate
Oh oh oh oh oh
Cadbury Creme Egg launched an ad campaign in 2008 with the absurd slogan “Release the Goo.” The campaign has a website linking to games, apps, and consumer generated content, all centered around dares. It also includes a number of short stop motion videos ending with dramatic explosions of Cadbury Creme Egg gooeyness. A particularly heartwrenching example, Mousetrap:
A YouTube search reveals a host of DIY stop motion videos that involve chocolate. While these videos are not as elaborate as those of Jesse & Joy or Cadbury Creme Eggs, they are nevertheless entertaining examples of chocolate stop motion fun.
For example, there is the touching Milk Chocolate: A Love Story starring interracial chocolate bunnies:
And the riveting Chocolate Tetris played with Ritter Sport squares:
Finally, the team behind the new Sagres Preta Chocolate Beer from Portugal adapted the stop motion technique to create “the world’s first website entirely made of chocolate”, an interactive site that’s worth a look to admire its artistry. The launch of the beer in conjunction with the site has generated viral publicity on the web; blogs and feeds have discussed the site extensively over the past two months (e.g. posts from Foodista, Oddity Central, and so good magazine. Here’s a behind the scenes look at the making of the site:
So cool.
comments
Leave a Reply
-
About
Bittersweet Notes is an open source research project on chocolate, culture, and the politics of food. I invite you to join me as I explore the story of chocolate and the life stories of those involved with chocolate at its many stages of production and consumption.
-
Stay connected
