The Fifteenth Cut

Week Fifteen at Zoo Media

There was a point earlier in the internship when handling even one project at a time felt overwhelming. This week reminded me of how much had changed since then.

Monday arrived at full speed. The first half of the day disappeared entirely into completing pending work for a new client project that had carried over from the previous week. I worked mainly on horizontal collaterals this time, which felt different from the faster paced reel based edits I had become used to. What stood out most while working on this project was not just the editing itself, but the amount of coordination involved. Constant conversations with different departments, waiting for approvals, adapting to different working styles, being patient through delays and confusion. It made me realise that creative work is rarely only about creativity. A huge part of it is learning how to work with people, especially when everyone approaches problems differently.

By the second half of the day, I shifted back into familiar territory with Client 5. More feedback rounds. More refinements. Tiny edits that somehow took far longer than expected. By this point, the reel and I had practically grown together. After spending so many days inside the same timeline, I knew every cut, every transition, every beat almost instinctively.

Tuesday somehow became even longer.

It was one of those days where the timeline never really closes because the projects simply keep changing. I moved between three completely different clients in a single day. The morning began with revisions for the new client project from Monday, followed by finally locking and closing the Client 5 game reel by the afternoon. There is always a strange satisfaction in closing a project after days of endless revisions. Almost like finally exhaling after holding your breath for too long.

Towards the evening, I unexpectedly revisited Client 7 again while adding an end slate to an older reel I had worked on earlier in the internship. It felt oddly nostalgic opening an old project file. Looking at my own older edits made me realise how much faster and more confident I have become over the past few months. Small differences perhaps, but noticeable ones.

By Wednesday morning, the office slowed down slightly with a team meeting. And somewhere in the middle of that meeting, I had a strange realisation. The very first meeting I attended at the beginning of the internship had barely four people sitting around discussing projects. Now the team had grown almost double in size. New people. New interns. New projects constantly entering the workflow. It was strangely nice witnessing growth happening around me in real time while also quietly realising that I had grown alongside it too.

The rest of the day remained relatively light, which gave me too much time to think. And lately, all my thoughts somehow lead back to the same thing. The internship ending soon.

I have started noticing the small things more now. The familiar sound of chairs rolling across the floor. Someone laughing loudly from another desk. The routine coffee breaks. People randomly gathering around one screen to look at an edit. The chaos that once overwhelmed me now feels almost comforting.

Thursday arrived quietly with the Eid holiday, followed by an unusually calm Friday. After the intensity of the previous weeks, the office finally felt lighter again. I spent the day playing table tennis, talking to colleagues, and simply enjoying the slowness for once instead of chasing another deadline.

And maybe that is what made this week feel important.

Not because of the projects themselves, but because somewhere along the way, the chaos stopped feeling temporary.

It started feeling like something I would miss.