The Fifth Cut

Week Five at Zoo Media

Week five began with another to do list, which by now had become a familiar way to start a Monday. This time, though, the list looked more ambitious than the day itself. A lot of the projects I was meant to work on had not been shot yet, which meant there was no footage to begin editing. The result was a strangely long Monday, the kind where time moves slowly because there is not much you can actually do with it. Most of my day went into sorting footage for Client 4, which was useful, but not exactly the kind of task that makes the clock move faster.

Tuesday brought a pause of a different kind. I was not feeling well, so I took the day off.

By Wednesday, the week had finally found its pace. What began slowly suddenly became productive, and I managed to finish two reels for Client 4. In the middle of working on them, I figured out how to create text styles for subtitles so that I would not have to manually adjust every single line one by one. It felt like one of those small editing discoveries that saves both time and sanity, and I was probably more excited about it than I should admit.

By Thursday, the pattern of the week had become clear to me. Mondays and Tuesdays tend to stay light, almost deceptively so, and then somewhere around Wednesday the volume rises all at once. That day was exactly like that. I finalised both reels for Client 4 with the account manager and the creative lead, then shifted to another reel for Client 5, where the team did not have the open file or even the footage available. It was one of those moments that forces you to think less about ideal conditions and more about problem solving. Somewhere in between, I also wrapped up the eighth and final reel for Client 2, which felt satisfying simply because it had been part of my workflow for a while.

Friday carried that same sense of movement. The day began with my first internal team meeting for a client, which felt like a small milestone in itself. The rest of the day was a continuation of everything already in motion. I worked on the feedback for both Client 4 reels, completed the final reel for Client 2, and also made changes to another project for Client 1 before sending it back for approval.

Looking back, it was one of those weeks that proves first impressions are not always accurate. It started slowly enough to make me wonder how much I would actually get done, and ended with multiple reels completed, finalised, revised, and sent out.

Somewhere between waiting for footage and racing through feedback, the week found its shape.