The short answer
Effects are part of your page, not part of the meeting. When you press an effect button or one of keys 1–5, every guest watching inside your room sees and hears it at the same moment. The meeting underneath carries on exactly as normal.
The meeting platform's own cloud and local recordings capture the meeting: cameras, voices and shared screens. They do not capture anything drawn on top of your page. In the room running today, the platform is Zoom, and Zoom recordings will not include your effects. Zoom is a trademark of Zoom Communications, Inc. BrandedRooms is an independent product and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Zoom.
Why effects work this way
Keeping effects on the page is what makes them feel instant and look the same for everyone in the room. They are drawn above the meeting, on a layer that never touches the meeting itself, and clicks pass straight through them, so they never block anyone's meeting controls and need nothing from the meeting platform. If a guest switches the meeting to full screen, the effects follow them there.
The trade-off is the one on this page: what the meeting does not see, the meeting cannot record. It also means people who joined through the desktop app instead of your page do not see effects live. Share the room address, not the bare meeting link, if you want everyone to enjoy the moment.
Plan effects around the run of show
Because effects only live on the page, decide in advance which moments deserve one and who fires them. Write them into your run of show next to the line that cues them: the welcome, each award, the product reveal, the closing thank you. Agree on the key for each one, so a co-host can fire the right effect while you keep talking.
Less is more. A rocket for the launch and applause for each winner feel special; an effect every few minutes starts to feel like noise, on the page and in the replay.
Capture a replay with effects
To keep the confetti in your replay, record the room page rather than the meeting. Here is a simple way to do it.
- On a spare computer, open your room as a guest with a name such as Replay and a team email.
- Make the browser window full screen and close notifications, chat apps and other tabs.
- Start your computer's built-in screen recorder, or any screen recording tool you trust, and include system audio so effect sounds are captured.
- Keep that guest muted with the camera off, and leave the window alone for the whole event.
- Stop the recording at the end, trim the start and finish, and use it as your replay.
Keep the platform recording too
Run the meeting platform's recording as well, as a backup. It is your clean copy of the voices and shared screens if anything happens to the screen recording, and some hosts prefer it for training libraries or transcripts. Name both files clearly so your team knows which one has the effects.
Do a short test first. Record a minute of your room during your guest test, fire an effect, and play the file back with sound before the real event.
Make effects land in a replay
A replay viewer has not been in the room, so a little narration helps. Say what is happening as you fire an effect: a welcome for the new partners, applause for the award winner, a rocket for the launch. The words carry the moment in the meeting recording, and the screen recording carries the confetti. Together they keep the celebration for everyone who watches later.