Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1547041
n the Warner Bros. feature The End of Oak Street, a cosmic event rips a neighborhood from its suburban location and transports it to an unknown place where dinosaurs still roam. The Platt family discovers that their very sur- vival now depends on sticking together. Anne Hathaway and Ewan McGregor are joined by Maisy Stella and Christian Convery to make up the fictional family. The project was written and directed by David Robert Mitchell, produced by J.J. Abrams and shot by director of pho- tography Michael Gioulakis. ILM handled visual effects work. John Axelrad, whose credits include Ad Astra, The Lost City of Z and Crazy Heart, edited The End of Oak Street, and recently sat down with Post to discuss his experience and workflow. John, looking at your list of credits, you've done a lot of film work? "Yeah. I've been geared towards feature films. As you do one, then you get anoth- er and another, and believe me, I'm very happy and blessed to have had a very fulfilling career doing features. They're a lot of fun. It's not something I want to get pigeonholed doing though, because this business, they do want to pigeon- hole you." With credits like Ad Astra, and the new film The End of Oak Street, it looks like you are comfortable with heavy VFX films? "Lately I've been doing some visual effects movies, and I think it's important because so much of the industry is going in that direction. But honestly, what I thrive on are genuine, heartfelt stories with emotion and characters you really care about. I'm not just looking for some- thing that's all visual effects and spec- tacle-based. What really drives me, and why I became a film editor is, I just love telling stories on the human level." In the case of The End of Oak Street, how did you get involved? "Well, my agent is very instrumental in helping me get movies, but at the same time, he's limited if he goes to the studio and the studio hasn't really worked with me before. In this case, I haven't really done a Warner Bros. studio film…I had been following (director) David Robert Mitchell, because I love his movies. Not just It Follows, which I think is brilliant, but his other two movies…the one before this, Under the Silver Lake. And I heard that his normal editor, who was Julio Perez, was not available. I didn't know Julio, but I had an editor colleague of mine, Harry Yoon, who had worked with Julio, and I asked Harry to put us in touch, and he did! And I had a great conversation. We had a lunch, and then he recommended me to David. Literally, the next day, I got the script. I talked with David (and) a week later, I got the job!" What were the needs for this film? "Reading the script and having spoken with David, what's most important about The End of Oak Street is the family dy- namic — understanding the family, and understanding the characters and their relationships, and the whole character arc. You can have as much action as you want, but it won't help the movie." What kind of timeframe were you working under? "I actually started the project in March of 2024 — way back. That's when they started shooting. It was probably a 50- day shoot, which is ambitious for a film of this scope. David and I worked on it together, and we first had edited action scenes, because in a film like this, they do something called 'post vis,' which means they take the live-action sequences with the dinosaurs, and then they add pretty high-quality visual effects, but they're not the official visual effects… So we had to do that out of order. We had a preview screening of it, and the studio and David, we all agreed we needed to do some more shooting to fill in the gaps. As I mentioned, [it was] very ambitious. It was a tight schedule for a film like this, but the problem [was], we had to wait for Anne Hathaway, because she was very, very busy, as you can imagine… The visual effects take a while, so we wrapped this project up last November." Did that give you a little less pressure, as far as a deadline? "There's always pressure, because the stu- dio doesn't want to keep spending money if they don't have to. So, it's not like they're saying, 'Oh, take all the time you need.' But not having a hard release date prevented us from having to work seven days a week, so it was a more humane schedule, and we appreciated that." Where were you working in relation to where production was taking place? "On this particular film, we were in Los Angeles, and they were shooting in Atlanta. On some projects, they do take you on-location for the shoot. But now, with so many remote working platforms, it's so easy to share cuts…They were shooting there, and I was editing here from day-1. When they started principal photog- raphy, it allows me to put the film together — out of order — in the order that they're shooting, and also to let them know that, 'Hey guys, this scene is great, but I think we're missing this.' Or, 'Hey, the scene is coming together so well, I think you guys don't need to shoot this other scene.'" Where were you set up? Did you work out of studio space or from home? "Well, I love working with a crew, so I really don't want to work at home. I think it's very valuable to have my assistant editors on-site with me. I love to mentor, and I'm very proactive in mentoring my assistants. I've had so many go on to great success. I've had three assistants get nominated for an Academy Award, and two that won an Academy Award for Editing, so I love the mentorship pro- cess. I often share editing credits with my assistants, or try to. "In this case, we had to be at Bad Robot in Santa Monica, which was the THE END OF OAK STREET BY MARC LOFTUS JOHN AXELRAD CUTS A VFX SPECTACLE WITH A HEARTFELT STORY I EDITING www.postmagazine.com 12 POST SEPT/OCT 2026 Editor John Axelrad