Page 112 - Light Dragoons 2022 CREST

The Regimental Journal of The Light Dragoons
We started the year once again in lock- down with the museum having been closed since the beginning of November 2020 and we were to remain closed to the public until the middle of May. However, there was still plenty of work to do behind the scenes to keep us busy.
At the end of 2020 we had started a new project – creating a virtual tour of Charge! We felt there were many benefits to such a project; not only were we connecting with visitors who were unable to visit the museum but we could reach an interna- tional audience. Here was also an opportu- nity to add a new dimension to our exist- ing interpretation, and once again keep the gallery at the forefront of the sector. The idea was to have a 3D scanned model of the gallery that visitors could navigate around and explore. Throughout the gallery would be ‘hotspots’ to click on, providing addi- tional interpretation and information using a mixture of text, images, oral his- tories, films, and interviews with curators, veterans and representatives from the serv- ing regiment. To bring the space to life and make it feel more welcoming we decided to populate the scan with ‘real people’.
The first few months of 2021 were spent deciding on the hotspot topics, researching
Museum
them and sourcing images and additional content. By early May, once all the hot- spot content had been agreed on and will- ing participants signed up, we were ready for the gallery to be scanned and for the interviews to be filmed. In advance of this we seized the opportunity to give the space a very thorough spring clean!
The scanning of the gallery took a morn- ing, throughout the space were soldiers,
Filming the interviews for the virtual tour
curators and veterans holding a series of poses...adjusting mannequin uniforms, case cleaning, reading panels and looking at displays. Once the scanning was com- plete, we moved onto filming the inter- views. We were very fortunate to have RQMS Tony Richardson from The Light Dragoons talking us through the most up to date kit, examples of which we hope to showcase in the future. Filming and scan- ning completed it was over to Sarah and
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Screen grab of the virtual tour