Digital on a Budget
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A presentation covering cheap / free digital platforms that will help you with your digital activities.
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Digital on a Budget
- 1. DIGITAL ON A BUDGET FREE OR CHEAP TOOLS TO GET THE JOB DONE @ThatMuseumGuy @LondonMusDev
- 2. Alec Ward Museum Development Officer Digital and Communications London Museum Development (@LondonMusDev) Hosted by Museum of London (@MuseumofLondon) *We’ll be sharing the slides! (@ThatMuseumGuy) @ThatMuseumGuy @LondonMusDev
- 3. Choosing the right platform / tool • Be strategic • Think about your resources (time, budget, equipment) • Think about the content • Think about your skill level • YouTube is your best friend • Accessibility! (of the platform and your content) @ThatMuseumGuy @LondonMusDev
- 4. L I V E S T R E A M I N G
- 5. LIVE STREAMING Pros: free, easy to use, can do it through your phone Cons: not overly polished, very specific audience Pros: easy to do live, can do it through your phone, a general audience Cons: locked behind the Facebook walled garden (harder to share externally) Pros: younger audience, quite informal Cons: live is a little more complicated – doesn’t sit on the platform indefinitely @ThatMuseumGuy @LondonMusDev
- 6. LIVE STREAMING Pros: take pre-booked groups, more interactive (can stream to other platforms) Cons: not for a very large audience, not overly neat @ThatMuseumGuy @LondonMusDev Pros: can go live straight from browser, integrates well with Zoom and OBS Cons: can’t go live straight from phone with under 1000 subscribers Pros: create a very polished final product – with lots of different types of content Cons: VERY TECHNICAL
- 7. LIVE STREAMING: TYPES OF CONTENT @ThatMuseumGuy @LondonMusDev
- 8. V I D E O E D I T I N G
- 9. VIDEO EDITING Basic • iMovie (iOS app) • FilmoraGo (Android) • Stop Motion Studio (iOS / Android) Advanced • iMovie (OSX) • HitFilm (OSX, Windows) @ThatMuseumGuy @LondonMusDev
- 10. VIDEO EDITING London Fire Brigade Pop Up Museum @ThatMuseumGuy @LondonMusDev
- 11. TIPS FOR IMPROVING VIDEO QUALITY @ThatMuseumGuy @LondonMusDev • Invest in a tripod • Purchase some cheap lights • Microphones! • Think about using a DSLR (can capture video and photographs). I use this.
- 12. S I M P L E I N T E R A C T I V E S
- 13. SIMPLE INTERACTIVES The Software • PowerPoint / Google Sheets • Twine • WordPress What to do with them? • Host them on web • Share them on social • Give out the links for visitors • Incorporate them in live events @ThatMuseumGuy @LondonMusDev
- 14. D I G I TA L T O U R S
- 15. DIGITAL TOURS The Software / Programmes • PowerPoint / Google Slides • Google Tour Creator • Video tour • Art Fund’s Curations (for online exhibitions) Examples / guides? • Google Slides (you can even purchase a template) • Google Tour Creator (useful guide) • Video tour (Van Gough Museum) (Science Museum) • Curations (Fernes Art Gallery Hull) (Keats House) @ThatMuseumGuy @LondonMusDev
- 16. I M A G E E D I T I N G
- 17. IMAGE EDITING Basic • Adobe Photoshop Express (iOS, Android) • Pixabay (web-based) • BeFunky (web-based) • Giphy (web-based) Advanced • GIMP (OSX, Windows, Linux) • Paint.NET (Windows) @ThatMuseumGuy @LondonMusDev
- 19. Livening up your digital content • Think about interactivity (particularly for live content) • What makes your organisation unique? • What talents do you or your staff have? • What else do you already have at your disposal? • Can you collaborate? (with your audience, with other organisations) @ThatMuseumGuy @LondonMusDev
- 20. Accessibility! DCN, StageText, VocalEyes Izzy Bartlet (great Medium post) John Sear (fantastic guides for in-house digital work) Sophie Drouet (excellent thread) London Museum Development YouTube (we’re adding more tutorials and webinars) Culture 24’s Digital Pathways (loads of useful guides and resources) ACE Digital Culture Network resources (lots of great resources) FURTHER READING / RESOURCES @ThatMuseumGuy @LondonMusDev
- 21. • HitFilm • iMovie • GIMP • WordPress (website) (blog) • PowerPoint Interactives (excellent tutorials from John Sear) • Twine TUTORIALS @ThatMuseumGuy @LondonMusDev
- 22. Thanks! Any questions? Ask me today, or… by email: award@museumoflondon.org.uk on Twitter: @thatmuseumguy
Editor's Notes
- Slide Three How does the activity benefit your organisation, work towards your aims goals and objectives? Resources come in all shapes and forms – from the things you have to the things you need. Think carefully about your resources There are lots of different tools and lots of different ways to use them (often for the same “job”) so think carefully about the type of content you want to create and the platform(s) that would best suit it Consider the skill level of yourself and of your team (or those you may be collaborating with). It’s tempting to go big, but sometimes simple is best – you can always build on what you’re delivering over time Following that, YouTube is your best friend – because there’s a tutorial for everything and anything. So if you see any platforms you like the look of in this presentation, search for a YouTube tutorial! Please consider the accessibility of your content and the platforms your using – both for your own staff and for your audiences. Check out the end of my presentation for some links to organisations that can help with accessibility.
- Slide Five Twitter: What is it? How does it work? What can you share? Twitter is a ‘micro-blogging platform’. Basically, you can share short tweets of up to 280 characters with an audience of followers. Functions like ‘Re-Tweet’ allows your content to reach a wider audience and if it gets picked up, it can be seen hundreds or thousands of times. You can also share images and videos, as well as GIFs, and you can even live stream from the platform. Twitter is still quite popular, despite having a rocky year a little while back, and it can be a great platform to engage your audience in a light hearted way. Organizations share all sorts on twitter, from images of collections, to interesting short stories, to behind the scenes videos. Some keep it light hearted and funny, others keep it a bit more professional / formal / informational. It’s very much down to your organization, the types of stories you’ll tell and the kind of collections you’ll be sharing. Facebook: What is it? How does it work? What can you share? Facebook is the ‘everything’ platform. It covers all sorts of content, from short and long written posts, to videos, to live streams, to pictures. Some people, particularly those under the age of 30(ish) are moving away from the platform, but there is still a dedicated audience. Museums use Facebook for all sorts, from advertising events, to sharing live behind the scenes content. They write mini-blogs and they share images of their collections. They make videos with staff, they share exhibitions. Instagram: What is it? How does it work? What can you share? Instagram has a much younger audience, so it’s a good platform to use to reach that audience. Instagram is predominately about images (either images of collections, or historic photographs, or of your building / staff). However, video is gaining traction on the platform, particularly through “Stories” and “Instagram TV”. Instagram is one of the fastest growing platforms, at present, but it’s core audience is quite young and they sometimes have a habit of abandoning platforms for something more popular (if something else comes around, it’s how Instagram took users from Snapchat).
- Slide 7 Archive Lottery: https://twitter.com/AdamCorsini/status/934014037163048962 Lunar Eclipse LIVE: https://www.facebook.com/watch/live/?v=2442619535810306&ref=watch_permalink Great Fire of London LIVE: https://www.facebook.com/27560776046/videos/273654880389464 Strawberry Hill Flower Festival: https://www.strawberryhillhouse.org.uk/flower-festival/
- Now museums make all kinds of videos, from short videos to long videos. From adverts for exhibitions to talks and lectures. They make them on high budgets and low budgets – they make them in house and they pay for them to be made by external companies. There are so many different ways to make videos and you have a ton of great options for platforms to do it. No you could just shoot a video on your phone and post it straight to social media, or even upload it to your website. But if you're looking for something a little more professional, or a little more advanced, these platforms will help you out! Talk about how we run the training (show people how to make a video then edit it in the afternoon using HitFilm)
- Slide 9 BASIC There are basic apps that you can download on your phone or tablet which will let you shoot and edit videos before you save them, or post them online. These are mostly entry level applications – it wouldn't take you long to learn how to do it. And, to be honest, I think it's worth starting small (by using an app) and learning the basic skills before going on to anything more advanced. If you're looking to edit a basic video together, one of my favorite apps is iMovie. It's only available on iPhone or iPad as it's an apple product. That being said, it's really easy to use and it will help you learn the basics before trying anything more advanced on a desktop or laptop. On Android devices, FilmoraGo has good reviews. I've used it once or twice – but I preferred iMovie. It's still a good tool, though, and if you’re looking to trim a clip or combine a few videos together into one longer video, this app will do the job – as will iMovie. If you're looking for something a little different, Stop Motion Studio is a great app for making short stop motion animations. In a minute, I'll show you a really nice example of a museum creating videos with their learning audiences using stop motion animations. All three of those are free, but Stop Motion and Filmora have paid extras you can purchase / unlock to make better use of the app. ADVANCED If you're looking to do something a little more advanced (overlay different audio tracks, like Music, for instance), or a little more professional, these are the two programmes I'd recommend. In the training programme, we use HitFilm. It's probably the best option for those who use Windows based devices. It's free, with purchasable extras if you're looking to do something more fancy. It's also fairly powerful if you need it to be, but it's great for quick and simple videos, too. In a perfect world, we'd use iMovie in the training programme. It's really easy to use, it's free on apple devices and it has lots of free to use music / sound effects ready for use. The only reason we don't use it in the programme is because it only works on OSX. HitFilm is a close second, though.
- Slide 10 Here are two really simple videos – one from the Museum of London and the other from the London Fire Brigade Museum. The video from Tim Long, who used to work at MOL, has really minimal editing and he did it all in-app. I think it's a great example of a really simple video and shows that you don't need to do a huge amount of work to make something engaging (and professional!). This example from the London Fire Brigade Museum is a wonderful example of audience engagement using videos. They encourage young audiences to learn about fire safety by making stop motion animations through an app. They then edit the videos together and upload them to their social platforms! It’s also worth pointing out that Gunnersbury Park even run a charged day long children’s workshop showing them how to create stop motion animations using these types of apps and it’s something you could likely run as an online session using a platform like Zoom. This Barnsley Museum video is a nice example of simple video content – very little editing needed and you could likely do a lot of it within your mobile device: https://twitter.com/BarnsleyMuseums/status/1240941575531790336
- Slide 11 A tripod (for phone / tablet or for camera) will help to keep your video smooth and stable – make it a more pleasant viewing experience for your audience and much easier for you to create content (No hands needed!) Good lighting can make a big difference, often in historic houses, galleries and exhibitions lighting is low (for conservation reasons) but it makes it difficult to capture good video footage within those spaces. So invest in some cheaper portable lights (£30 max) to increase lighting levels and stop grainy footage People will forgive poorer video quality, but are less forgiving of audio. Microphones can make a big difference. You can get plug in microphones for phone cameras and DSLRs, or USB microphones if you’re recording / delivering on a laptop. I used a Yeti (£50) for this talk Better cameras get better video footage (though newer phones are pretty good these days!). Perhaps look at investing in a decent DSLR (£350 - £600) which can capture Full HD (1080p) or 4K video as well as take pictures (make sure it comes with a lens, as some cameras are shipped as just bodies and you can’t use it without one!)
- Slide 12 I understand the irony of the photo in this slide. Museums have some fantastic interactives – the Science Museum has some of my favourites (and you might have caught them talking about their game Total Darkness in the previous talk!) It is difficult to make a good interactive and you can spend a lot of money doing so You can also make some really simple interactives using free tools or platforms – they may not be good enough quality to be public facing in your exhibitions, but they could work well for engaging learning audiences, or even making them as a learning activity
- Slide 13 You can make really basic, simple interactives using any of these platforms Basically, the better the interactive, the harder it is to make Brighton Museums have made in-gallery interactives by creating WordPress websites. You can look through them in-gallery, but you can also visit the website and use the interactives from home. You can use Twine to make short interactive stories (much like those Choose Your Own Adventure games?). But some people have created entire Role Playing Games using Twine – so it really is down to your own creativity / abilities. You can even use PowerPoint to make museum interactives Hardware wise, you can use most tablet or mobile devices to display WordPress sites, interactive stories or PowerPoint interactives. But if you’re trying to avoid touch you can send links via email, on your website or via social. Really, it's down to the type of interactive you're looking to make and the kind of experience you want your audience to have It is possible to make good interactives using these tools – but you'd get a better quality product if you were able to get funding to pay a company to do it for you (unless you really take time and dedicate yourself to practice, etc).
- Slide 15 Similar to how you’d make an interactive, you could make an interactive digital tour using Google Slides or PowerPoint. There’s a good how too linked on this slide to creating a good Google Slide based interactive tour – however you can use PowerPoint to the same effect. Hosting it on your website would be easier on Google Slides, though Google Tour is a specific tour creator, but it works best with 360 degree images (which is difficult for some). There are some fairly good apps available that help you to take 360 degree images: https://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/best-360-degree-camera-apps-ios-android/ A simple video tour could work just as well – without the need for it to be interactive. There are some great examples out there, but here are two different versions of the same idea from the Van Gough and the Science Museum. One is more about exploring the space, whereas the other is more informative. If you’re thinking about creating an online exhibition, Art Fund’s free Curations platform could be a good choice. Check out the examples from Fernes Art Gallery and Keats House
- Slide 16 Editing images isn't everyone's cup of tea. It can take a lot of work and it really depends on what type of result you're looking for You could look to touch up photographs of your collections. You might want to make a GIPH using your collections. You might just want to crop an image or save an image in a lower resolution for sharing online. There's lots of different platforms and tools that can help you with your image editing work.
- Slide 17 BASIC There are lots of basic apps which can help you touch up photographs. You can crop, add filters, create GIFs – all sorts. Even within the basic section, there are different levels. BeFunky for instance, will let you make collages, resize images or make minor touch-ups. Adobe Photoshop Express will let you do a little more. You can even edit photographs in Instagram – adding filters, rotating images, cropping them. There are lots of options when it comes to basic work with images / photographs. If you're looking to make GIFs to share online, particularly on Twitter, Giphy is a good platform. Particularly as you can upload your own videos and turn them into GIFs. ADVANCED If you're looking to do something much more advanced, but you don't want to use PhotoShop (because it's expensive), GIMP is a pretty good option (I appreciate that the name isn't great – but the programme itself is! I use GIMP to edit pictures all the time, as well as make GIFs. As an example, here's a video I made of me turning myself into Thanos.
- Slide 18 The Museum of English Rural Life is smashing it with their image editing and GIF games. Adam uses PhotoShop for his stellar work, but you can use GIMP just the same (if a tad more fiddly, but that’s what you get for a free programme). Seeing as Adam, and the Museum’s Director Kate Arnold-Forster, will be talking about the MERL’s digital culture change at 14:15 – 14:55 in the Engaging New Visitors section (Theatre 2) – I thought I’d share some of my favourites. Whilst the Culture Perth and Kinross examples isn’t strictly image editing, it is a good example of being creative with imagery using digital platforms. Dougie uses Paint to create these pieces, inspired by collection items, digitised and held by the museums: https://twitter.com/CPKMuseums/status/1244690759409860609
- Slide 19 Think creatively about how you can add in elements of interactivity for your audience, particularly with live content. You could look at using a mix of the different platforms I’ve mentioned already. Or even as simple as gathering and answering comments through the comment section. If you’re looking for something really interactive, think about a meeting platform like Zoom for hosting your events. What makes your organisation unique, and how can you utilise that uniqueness? The Old Royal Naval College is very strong on Instagram, and it’s because they know what their unique selling point is (a stunning building and grounds) and they’ve picked the best platform to work to those strengths What talents do you or your staff have? How can you make the most of them, build on them and share them? The Culture Perth and Kinross example is a good one – Dougie was working for their events team but now he’s making killer social media content What do you already have at your disposal? What content do you already have digitised? Films, photographs, audio? How can you utilise it in your current digital activities? Can you collaborate? With your audience, with other organisations, with individuals? The Strawberry Hill House example is a good one for collaboration to do a live event.
- Slide 20 So that's everything I've got for today – there's loads of other things I could have mentioned if there was more time But hopefully what I have talked about has been interesting and useful Do go out and experiment with the platforms, think about how you can use them in your day-to-day work to save a little time and money. Be creative and inquisitive but, most importantly, be prepared to practice! These are some links to the things I've already mentioned, including some fantastic guides for in-house digital work from John Sear
- Slide 21 Here's a list of some more useful tutorials – but there are plenty out there if you give it a google!
- Slide 22 I'm always happy to chat about this type of stuff – so feel free to send me a Tweet or drop me an email if you ever have any questions or just fancy a chat about digital stuff! In my spare time I also do a twice monthly newsletter which covers digital tech news / information within and outside of the culture sector – so do subscribe if that's of interest