The Ninth Cut

Week Nine at Zoo Media

This week felt less like editing and more like trying to untangle a giant knot of footage, concepts, timelines, and half answered questions. But somewhere inside all that confusion, I think I finally started understanding what it really means to organise creative work properly.

Monday began with an unusual amount of motivation. I walked into the office feeling productive before the day had even started, which honestly made a difference. My first task was simple enough. I had to implement feedback on the Client 4 reel and managed to finish that fairly quickly. After that came the real challenge of the day, figuring out the content lists for Client 2.

Since content for multiple months had been shot together, everything had started blending into each other. Similar concepts, improvised scripts, overlapping footage, missing clarity. I sat with the BAU content decks open, trying to tally what had and had not been shot, but every answer somehow led to more confusion. After struggling through one media list, I eventually scrapped the whole thing and started again from scratch.

This time, I approached it differently. Instead of simply listing reels, I built a much more detailed system for myself. I wrote down reel titles, identified whether each piece was edit based or animation based, marked whether it had been shot, checked if voiceovers had been recorded, and separated everything month wise. It took hours of sorting, cross checking, and reorganising, but by the end of it, the chaos finally started making sense. I went home feeling completely drained, but also strangely proud. It felt less like editing and more like problem solving.

After all that confusion, Tuesday felt noticeably lighter. I returned to the Client 4 reel, implemented the remaining feedback, and finally got the edit approved. Compared to the previous day, it felt smooth and uncomplicated, which was honestly a relief.

Wednesday brought the focus right back to Client 2. The entire day revolved around organising, sorting, planning, and preparing ahead. I selected music for five reels in advance so the editing process would move faster later on, then created lineups for all the reels that had been shot and sent them across for feedback. Most of the day was filled with discussions around the brand itself, the concepts, the media structure, and figuring out how everything would eventually come together. It was one of those heavy workdays where the productivity feels constant from morning till evening.

By Thursday, Client 2 had fully taken over the week. I worked on multiple BAU and media reels throughout the day, but the most unexpected part of it had nothing to do with editing. We had new interns joining the team, and I found myself explaining the brand to them, breaking down the editing style, the structure of the content, and basically giving them a full crash course. At one point during the conversation, I had a strange realisation. When I joined, I was the one listening carefully and trying to understand everything. Now, somehow, I was the one teaching it. I never really thought of myself as someone capable of guiding other people through a workflow, so the moment felt oddly surreal.

Friday continued at the same fast pace. I worked on multiple reels for Client 2 and coordinated with the designer to discuss supers for upcoming edits so that the process could move faster later on. By the end of the week, the timelines, folders, and media lists that had once looked impossible to understand suddenly felt manageable.

This week was exhausting in a very different way. It was less about flashy edits and more about structure, clarity, organisation, and figuring things out step by step.

Somewhere between rebuilding spreadsheets, planning reels, and unexpectedly teaching new interns, I realised that editing is not just about creativity. Sometimes it is about learning how to bring order to complete chaos.