python zipfile module doesn't seem to be compressing my files

This is because ZipFile requires you to specify the compression method. If you don't specify it, it assumes the compression method to be zipfile.ZIP_STORED, which only stores the files without compressing them. You need to specify the method to be zipfile.ZIP_DEFLATED. You will need to have the zlib module installed for this (it is usually installed by default).

import zipfile

def main(archive_list=[],zfilename='default.zip'):
    print zfilename
    zout = zipfile.ZipFile(zfilename, "w", zipfile.ZIP_DEFLATED) # <--- this is the change you need to make
    for fname in archive_list:
        print "writing: ", fname
        zout.write(fname)
    zout.close()

if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()  

There is a really easy way to compress zip format,

Use in shutil.make_archive library.

For example:

import shutil

shutil.make_archive(file_name, 'zip', file location after compression)

Can see more extensive documentation at: Here