I have finally recovered emotionally enough to tell the story of a Zoom corporate gig I did earlier this year which ended with the client interrupting what I was doing, asking me to do something else, and me responding by playing "Happy Birthday" on the clarinet and hanging up.

I was booked to do half an hour of comedy over Zoom for the furloughed employees of a financial tech company. I was given some instructions - "Make fun of Harry for his haircut, and for Phil Booth [names changed] for his lack of one!" I took this to mean that Phil Booth was bald.

I was also specifically asked to do my "Star Wars routine." This was a routine I wrote for geek comedy night @DearHarrySpock in January that requires in-depth knowledge of Star Wars Episode IX, but the client said "Quite a few of my staff will really love it!"

I was also told that all the employees would have been sent a hamper containing Champagne and chocolate biscuits, and decided to incorporate this into my act so I had one as well, so I went out and bought a bottle of Champagne, a hamper and some chocolate biscuits.

My approach to comedy usually revolves around getting things wrong, being stupid, messing up, making mistakes, being silly. I wasn't sure how to communicate this tone in the context of a Zoom corporate without it just looking like everything I had planned to do was going wrong.

So yesterday, I was having a meeting with a publisher where I needed to share several different screens... which is really annoying to do with Zoom. So something had to done about that ;)

What you see here is a multi-screen setup using OBS.

Screen 1: Me (full HD webcam view)
Screen 2: PowerPoint
Screen 3: Browser + me in split screen view
Screen 4: Full screen browser view
Screen 5: (not playing) ...a video

And I can then switch between them via the number keys

Here is a screenshot of what my 'switcher' look like. Each of the small pictures below is a preview of each view. The big window on the left is the preview (to set up the next view), and the big picture on the right is what is currently being shown to Zoom

BTW: Also take a look at my latest newsletter where I talk about setting up a better view for speakers

Another problem I have with Zoom is that the quality is often crap, even though at my end it looks both sharp and crystal clear. I just discovered this is because Zoom is not HD at all.

This is a problem because when you share a screen via OBS instead, it will only be 720p.