The modern studio model is built on specialization. You have a director, a writer, a lead actor, and an army of visual effects artists working in a windowless room in London. Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead looked at this model, realized they had no money, and simply decided to do everything themselves.
The Economy of Consolidation
To achieve the massive, cosmic-horror scale of The Endless on a micro-budget, Benson and Moorhead aggressively consolidated roles. They co-directed, produced, co-edited, and cast themselves as the lead actors. But the true masterstroke of their production model lies in the visual effects.
Visual effects are expensive because they are usually written by someone who does not know how to execute them. Benson solved this by writing the script entirely around Moorhead’s specific, practical skill set as a VFX artist.
Writing for the Composite
Rather than outsourcing to a post-production house, Moorhead, who specializes in 2D compositing, executed the vast majority of the film’s mind-bending visual effects himself. Because the scenes were specifically tailored to his expertise, the duo was able to pull off ambitious, atmospheric visual flourishes for pennies.
They did not try to build a $100 million CGI monster. They built cosmic anomalies that Moorhead knew he could composite seamlessly in his own timeline. It is a radical form of reverse-engineering: you do not write a script and then figure out how to afford it. You figure out what you can afford to render on your own laptop, and then you write the script.
Insights regarding the DIY visual effects pipeline, role consolidation, and scripting specifically for Moorhead’s 2D compositing skills were synthesized from interviews with Benson and Moorhead in Filmmaker Magazine.