Animoto on

Sun, mountains, animal.

Mon, 26 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0000

So many old friends came out today, the sun, blue skies, Mt Rainier and an animal!

I made an animotion for my daughter over the weekend and it clearly re-sparked her interest in sending animals on the “big boat”. I arrived at the boat late, making only the last loading (after the cars) therefore missing the clear shot of the Cascades without the blinding sun – it didn’t matter, I was thrilled for a sunrise!

TWL, animoto, expo.

Fri, 23 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Since the mochi festival I’ve been honing my animoto production skills. I like the service quite a bit though there are some improvements I’d love see – an API and a better image browser top the list.

The Trust for Working Landscapes has a booth at the Healthy Living Expo this weekend so I decided to work on a animotion we could loop. Behold!

I upgraded to the DVD version for the show to run the video full-screen but I’m disappointed the images are still a bit grainy. I added the images by using animoto’s fetch-from-smugmug feature so I’m not sure if it fetched the full-size images. I’m going to try again uploading the originals directly to see if there’s an improvement.

Mochi, mallets, yum.

Mon, 19 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0000

When the storms hit after Christmas the Mochi Tsuki Festival at Islandwood, courtesy the Bainbridge Island Japanese American Community, was one of the casualties – fortunately it was just postponed.

We’ve never been to the long-time Island affair and we were excited, the gorgeous blue skies, perfect temperatures and outdoor venue at Islandwood certainly helped!

rice cooking over an open fire

I, for one, was unclear on the mochi making process. Like so many great foods it starts over an open fire – the firebox on the bottom, hot water in the tubs and the rice steaming in boxes over the boiling water.