The Third Cut

Week Three at Zoo Media

Week three felt shorter than usual, partly because of the Holi holiday and partly because most of it was spent diving deep into one project.

Monday was a fairly steady start. I worked on a couple of reels and settled back into the rhythm of the week, knowing a midweek break was coming. There was a quiet excitement in the office too. Everyone seemed to be looking forward to Holi.

Tuesday was exactly that. A colourful pause in the middle of the week.

By Wednesday, things picked up again. I was given a new brief for a project called Secret Ski Party (SSP). The brief itself was detailed, explaining the event, the location, the experience and the overall vibe the final reel needed to capture. Soon after, I was handed a hard disk packed with footage. And a lot of footage really does mean a lot.

From around 3 PM to almost 7:45 PM, I sat going through gigabytes of clips, selecting moments that stood out. Crowd reactions, small interactions, flashes of the energy of the event. Clip by clip, the story slowly began forming in my head. It was one of those editing sessions where time passes quietly without you noticing. By the time I left the office, I was extremely tired but also very happy. There’s something satisfying about watching a narrative appear from a mountain of raw footage.

Thursday started differently. I woke up feeling quite unwell but had a lot of work to finish. With my supervisor’s permission, I worked from home and focused on completing the SSP reel. It turned into a slower but productive day where I could concentrate fully on the timeline without the usual office buzz around me. By the evening, the reel was complete and I logged off early to rest.

Friday followed a similar pattern. I was still feeling under the weather, but instead of missing the day entirely, I went into the office for a few hours to work on the final changes to the SSP reel and close the project. Once everything was wrapped up, I headed home early.

Week three wasn’t packed with constant movement, but it felt meaningful in a different way. Between the holiday break, hours spent selecting footage, and finishing an edit while not feeling my best, it reminded me that editing isn’t always fast or flashy.

Sometimes it’s patience, persistence, and slowly shaping the story one cut at a time.