Creating and using scenes on a ZenVideo event

When you create a recurring virtual event or webinar and choose to Stream with ZenVideo, you’ll be brought into our web-based production tool. 

On this page, you will build and switch between scenes, allowing you to plan out your event’s run-of-show directly onsite and switch between multiple shots with different production elements included in them. For all of your production elements to be visible on your stream, you have to add them to a scene, and then push that scene to the stream. 

We strongly recommend building all of your scenes before your event in the order in which you will use them.

In this article:

• Add and remove scenes
• Add content to a scene
• Rename a scene
• Reorder scenes
• Change which scene your audience sees live
• Scene content limitations

Add and remove scenes

When you first land on the broadcast page, a scene with your webcam will automatically be added to the event (be sure to allow your browser to access your webcam and microphone if prompted). You can see this below the preview player.

To add a scene, click Add scene next to the default scene. You can also drag and drop the desired content (speakers, videos, slides, or images) in the default scene space to add a new scene. A new blank scene will appear to the right. You can add up to 50 scenes per event.

Every added scene will be enumerated by default.

If you will have multiple scenes that are similar to each other:

1. Hover your cursor over the scene.
2. Select the options menu on the scene and select Duplicate.
   
3. An identical scene will appear to the right, which you can edit independently of the original.

To delete a scene:

1. Hover your cursor over the scene you want to delete.
2. Select the options menu on the scene and select Delete.
3. The scene will be removed from your event.

Add content to a scene

Whether you want to include speakers, videos, images, or graphics from polls, Q&A, or custom scene lower thirds, you will need to add them to a scene for your viewers to see them.

You can also include slides into a scene. The feature slides will help you to upload a .pptx/.pdf file to a scene. You can add files up to 100MB and currently only static images will be shown.

To add content to a scene: 

1. Below the preview player, click on the scene you want to edit.
2. On the left side, hover over the content and select the (+) button to add content to a selected scene, or a (-) button to remove it.
   
   • If you are adding videos, you can browse folders on your account, including My library.
3. You will then see a matching icon in the scene below the preview player indicating what is included in that scene.

Rename a scene

You can rename all your scenes. This can help with storyboarding your event and indicate what’s happening when each scene is live in the stream.

1. By default, all scenes will be labeled “Scene.” 
2. Hover your cursor over “Scene” and click on it.
3. Type in your desired name (e.g. “Q&A session” or “Video premiere”).
   
4. Press the Enter or Return key to save the label.

Reorder scenes

Scenes will appear to the right as you add them. To ensure your scenes are in the order in which they will appear during your event, you can use your mouse to drag and drop them in the desired order. 

Change which scene your audience sees live

When your event is ready to start, click on the first scene. Then, select Go live on the top-right corner of the page to start streaming. 

To switch the next scene into the stream, select it at the bottom of the screen. You will see it in the preview player in the middle of the screen.

This player shows the live output that your viewers are seeing unless you are currently editing a non-live scene, in which case the live scene's thumbnail below will display the preview. 

⚠️Note: Once your event is live, the scene will automatically be visible to the audience once it has been selected. 

Edit a scene while your event is live

You can edit and remove scenes in your event while your event is live using two different methods. For live scenes, you can make changes that the audience will see immediately using the steps listed above.

To edit a non-live scene while a different scene is playing, follow these steps: 

1. Hover your cursor over the scene you want to edit. 
2. Select the options menu on the scene and select Edit scene.
   
   
3. Edit the scene as needed. Your changes will be saved automatically. 

Scene content limitations

• Only one image can be added to a scene at a time.
• Only one video can be added to a scene at a time.
• Scene lower-thirds, polls, and Q&A graphics cannot all be on the same scene simultaneously. Because they all use the same area of the player, only one can be applied to a scene at a time.
  • Scene lower-thirds will lay on top of lower-thirds attached to other production elements such as speakers.