Don't Encourage Us

Don't Encourage Us

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Don't Encourage Us episodes

  • Story Break: No Reel, No Role. Can This Startup Break Acting’s Catch-22?

    Actors face a frustrating catch-22: you need a reel to get work, but you need work to get a reel. Steve Custer's solution starts with a small production studio. Then the hosts ask a question that changes the business: What if actors aren’t the customers?

    The startup moves from producing demo reels to building a marketplace, from creative services to scalable infrastructure, and from a real problem to the harder question of whether solving it can support a viable business. The opportunity may be bigger than Steve imagines. So may the obstacles.

    In this episode:

    • The catch-22: Why actors struggle to get the footage they need to land their next role.
    • The Dune audition: Steve learns Kali stick fighting and cold-contacts casting director Jina Jay.
    • Filmmaking by opportunity: How a building headed for demolition became the setting for a guerrilla action short.
    • The pivotal question: If actors have the problem but limited money, who has the budget to solve it?
    • A different business model: Why serving casting directors might be more promising than selling directly to actors.
    • From service to platform: Could a searchable marketplace connect casting professionals with actors and their reels?
    • The AI angle: What if casting directors could search actor reels using metadata rather than sift through footage manually?
    • The scaling problem: Why labor-intensive creative services can struggle to grow, even when customers want the product.
    • The financial test: What separates a clever startup idea from a sustainable business?

    Also: the West Chester International Short Film Festival and, at the time of recording, a movie being pitched in Frederick, Maryland, with Steve Custer’s name on it.

    This is a Story Break episode: original business-concept development, with the hosts pressure-testing an idea in real time.

    More with Steve Custer: Episode 51 (Deadpool & Wolverine) and Episode 47 (Captain America: Brave New World).

    Reach the show at [email protected]
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    Listen to all the music we've discussed in every episode so far on our Encouraged Grooves playlist on YouTube and Spotify and find your next favorite song.

    1 hr 9 min
  • We Fed Our Episodes To AI. Here's What It Discovered.

    We gave an AI every transcript we had and asked it to figure out what the show actually is.

    It found moments worth discussing:

    - Why MCU box office is determined by sequencing, not quality — and what that means beyond Marvel
    - The structural difference between a high concept and a gimmick, and why Apple TV keeps getting it wrong
    - A prompt engineering framework that is the most professionally useful thing we have put in the feed
    - A live IP development session that turned into a methodology for building original concepts from psychological premises
    - A short film concept built on a precise clinical framework for character construction
    - Two IP revival pitches built around seasonal arc strategy and long-form mythology design

    At the end, the AI says what the show is and who it is for.

    It is not wrong.

    Reach the show at [email protected]
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    Listen to all the music we've discussed in every episode so far on our Encouraged Grooves playlist on YouTube and Spotify and find your next favorite song.

    17 min
  • Captain America: Brave New World — Why the MCU Can't Handle More Filler & the Case for Isaiah Bradley

    Sam Wilson has the shield. Harrison Ford has the best arc in the film. And somehow Captain America: Brave New World still doesn't have a main character. We break down what went wrong, what worked, and what Marvel should do next — including the one character from this film who deserves his own series.

     

    Jump to the 30-minute mark for the Captain America 4 deep dive. Spoilers throughout from that point.

    Reach the show at [email protected]
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    https://linktr.ee/dontencourageus

    Listen to all the music we've discussed in every episode so far on our Encouraged Grooves playlist on YouTube and Spotify and find your next favorite song.

    1 hr 56 min
  • Roadside Picnic & Stalker, Deadpool's Anti-Plot, and Story Break: UNESCO's Agent

    A plot can be broken and a film can still work. Deadpool & Wolverine is Exhibit A — we break down exactly why the character work and tonal execution carried a thinly-plotted story to $1.3B, and what that says about where creative effort actually needs to go. Then: Roadside Picnic and Tarkovsky's Stalker — a novel and a film that strip science fiction down to what it's really about. And in Story Break: we develop UNESCO's Agent, a thriller concept built around a secret operative whose only mission is to protect World Heritage Sites that no government will defend. Half James Bond, half Grey Man, with a character whose bitterness toward people makes him perfectly suited to protect what we've left behind.

     

    Topics discussed:

     

    Roadside Picnic & Tarkovsky's Stalker:

    • Roadside Picnic (1972): the Strugatsky brothers' philosophical sci-fi novel about alien artifacts left on Earth and the humans who illegally scavenge them
    • Stalker (1979): Tarkovsky's adaptation that strips the science fiction to its bones — three men, mud, and the question of what you truly want
    • The room that grants your deepest desire — not what you say, not what you think, but what you actually want — and why that's terrifying
    • Russian fiction's relationship with melancholy: why the journey matters more than resolution
    • Sepia to color: how the film uses visual language to mark the boundary between the mundane and the zone
    • Why Tarkovsky considered Solaris his least favorite film — too much science fiction survived the edit
    • French cinema comparison: the cut-to-black ending tradition vs. Russian endings that feel complete even when they're ambiguous

      •  

      Deadpool & Wolverine:

      • $1.3 billion on a film with almost no plot — what that says about where creative effort actually matters
      • Character work and tonal execution as the load-bearing elements when story is thin
      • The earlier draft that used "development hell" instead of the void — and why Gambit makes more sense in that version
      • Reynolds and Jackman as a modern buddy comedy duo: could they carry non-Marvel original films?
      • Planes, Trains and Automobiles references hidden throughout the film

        •  

        Three-Body Problem novels:

        • Steve finished the trilogy — both hosts place it in their top five novels ever
        • Why the Netflix adaptation can't go below the surface: the philosophical density is unfilmable
        • Cixin Liu's understanding of the ramifications of human decisions across centuries
        • The novel rewards big-picture thinkers and punishes anyone who lives purely in the moment

          •  

          Story Break: UNESCO's Agent:

          • The pitch: a secret operative paid by the World Heritage Trust to protect sites no government will defend
          • 1,223 UNESCO World Heritage Sites, 727 biosphere reserves — and almost no actual protection
          • Sample plot: terrorists hijack an oil tanker into the Norwegian fjords with dead man switches
          • The agent's mission is the site, not the hostages — a fundamentally different motivation than any existing thriller protagonist
          • Character backstory: half Chinese, half American, raised in India — trained as a doctor, hardened by Rwanda, Haiti, the Arab Spring
          • He loves humanity's heritage because he's given up on humanity itself — the arc is reconnecting with living people
          • Cold opens showing the geological or cultural formation of each site before the present-day threat
          • Local fixers instead of a permanent team — endless variety, no recurring cast bloat
          • The shadow committee: a scientist, a hedge fund billionaire, a former astronaut — different motivations, same goal
          • Format flexibility: novels, streaming series, film franchise, or mini-series — the concept scales to any budget

            •  

            Timestamps:

            • 0:00 — Introduction and Turkey travel
            • 2:19 — Deadpool & Wolverine follow-up: $1.3B without a plot
            • 10:35 — Reynolds and Jackman as a buddy comedy duo beyond Marvel
            • 14:40 — Roadside Picnic and Tarkovsky's Stalker: Russian sci-fi stripped to philosophy
            • 33:31 — Three-Body Problem: finishing the trilogy
            • 43:09 — Story Break: UNESCO's Agent pitch
            • 56:27 — Agent character backstory and development
            • 1:03:20 — Expanding the concept: formats, cold opens, supporting characters

              •  

              Reach the show at [email protected]
              Stop by and discourage us on Instagram, X, TikTok, Discord, YouTube, and Threads

              https://linktr.ee/dontencourageus

              Listen to all the music we've discussed in every episode so far on our Encouraged Grooves playlist on YouTube and Spotify and find your next favorite song.

              1 hr 23 min
            • Deadpool & Wolverine: Did It Un-F*ck the MCU?

              Guests: Matt Baughman (actor), Steve Custer / Spidey Steve (actor, Starwipe Films)

              Topics

              Plot and structure:

              • The plot was reverse-engineered from a wish list of cameos and set pieces
              • "Anchor being" as a concept invented to justify the multiverse Wolverine tour
              • Three layers operating simultaneously: actor farewell, Deadpool franchise, MCU setup — not always compatible
              • Fight choreography that's visually impressive but stakes-free because both leads regenerate

                • Does it save the MCU?

                • Temporarily through interest, not through story — generates excitement but points nowhere
                • No post-credit setup, no direction for what comes next
                • Agatha will likely deflate whatever goodwill this builds
                • The runway to Captain America: Brave New World (February 2025) is too long to sustain momentum
                • The MCU needs its next Avengers movie to course-correct, not individual films

                  • Cameo impacts:

                  • Chris Evans as Johnny Storm: clever switcheroo, but character played entirely for laughs — disrespectful to the actor's contribution
                  • Channing Tatum as Gambit: earned more in 15 minutes than a solo film would have — the accent worked
                  • Wesley Snipes as Blade: "there's only one Blade" line as commentary on the stalled Mahershala Ali reboot
                  • Daphne Keen as X-23/Laura: carried 50% of one of the film's only genuine emotional moments — still got it
                  • Henry Cavill as "The Cavillrine" — better executed than Nicolas Cage's Superman in The Flash
                  • Tyler Mane's Sabretooth: the anticipated fight with Wolverine over in two seconds — played for laughs

                    • Cassandra Nova:

                    • Obscure comics choice with paper-thin motivation in the film
                    • Multiple changes of heart that undermine any consistent threat
                    • Emma Corrin's performance was strong despite the writing

                      • Future predictions:

                      • Deadpool will return but the question is format — Avenger? Supporting role? Another standalone?
                      • X-Men and Fantastic Four properties now available to Marvel — the real long-term win
                      • Secret Wars as potential universe reset — needed sooner rather than later
                      • Thunderbolts unlikely to generate Avengers-level excitement

                        • Timestamps:

                        • 0:00 — Introduction and guest backgrounds
                        • 5:40 — Deadpool & Wolverine overview
                        • 10:25 — Initial reactions (spoiler-free)
                        • 15:51 — Plot weakness and meta-commentary
                        • 24:41 — Does this save the MCU?
                        • 32:38 — SPOILER WARNING — Cameo breakdown
                        • 1:07:12 — The happy ending and what it means
                        • 1:36:58 — Deadpool's MCU future

                          • Check out Steve Custer's work at Starwipe Films and Matthew Baughman's here. Then stalk your celebrity prey online at  @spidey_steve and @mattybaughs on Instagram.

                          Reach the show at [email protected]
                          Stop by and discourage us on Instagram, X, TikTok, Discord, YouTube, and Threads

                          https://linktr.ee/dontencourageus

                          Listen to all the music we've discussed in every episode so far on our Encouraged Grooves playlist on YouTube and Spotify and find your next favorite song.

                          1 hr 49 min
                        • The List: No One Can Save You, Late Night with the Devil, 1984, X-Men '97, & How to Actually Prompt AI

                          Topics

                          Apple TV+ sci-fi as gimmick:

                          • Dark Matter, Invasion, the Chris O'Dowd show, Godzilla series — all set up sci-fi premises then abandon them for soap opera
                          • The difference between sci-fi as gimmick and sci-fi that reveals something about humanity (Three-Body Problem comparison)
                          • Apple's niche audience strategy: HBO's old model with deeper pockets but possibly wrong content

                            • No One Can Save You (Hulu):

                            • Almost zero dialogue for the entire film — all show, no tell
                            • Alien invasion as metaphor for modern isolation and resentment
                            • Why limited budgets force innovation: the Robert Rodriguez "money hose" problem
                            • Multiple twists that keep resetting expectations across all three acts
                            • The ending as a reflection of how disconnected people actually feel

                              • Late Night with the Devil:

                              • 9 minutes of voiceover exposition before the film starts
                              • The demon doesn't appear until 55 minutes in
                              • Found footage conceit (lost master tape of a 1970s talk show's final Halloween episode)
                              • Very slow pacing despite strong concept

                                • 1984 (1984 film):

                                • The destruction of identity and love through torture
                                • Survival instinct pitted against attachment — survival wins, guilt destroys what's left
                                • Heavy science fiction used correctly: extreme circumstances reveal true things about people
                                • Eurythmics' "Sex Crimes" written for the film, used only in the trailer

                                  • X-Men '97:

                                  • Shapeshifter characters and gender fluidity as logical consequence of the power
                                  • The fired showrunner who delivered the MCU's best-received property in years
                                  • Animated series as the format that saved Marvel's audience scores

                                    • AI prompt engineering:

                                    • The formula: "Act as a top AI prompt engineer and analyze and improve the following prompt"
                                    • Why specifying the expert role, the purpose (not just the task), and the output format transforms results
                                    • Adding "explain your logic and context" to get reasoning, not just answers
                                    • Image recognition capabilities: uploading a photo of a city skyline and getting building-level identification

                                      • Reality TV ethics:

                                      • Love in the Wild (2011): canceled after two seasons, produced four marriages and eight children
                                      • Too Hot to Handle: maximum drama, zero lasting relationships
                                      • Psychometric tools used to select dysfunctional contestants — the informed consent problem
                                      • The F-boy Island incident: when a show refused to honor its own premise

                                        • Reach the show at [email protected]
                                        Stop by and discourage us on Instagram, X, TikTok, Discord, YouTube, and Threads

                                        https://linktr.ee/dontencourageus

                                        Listen to all the music we've discussed in every episode so far on our Encouraged Grooves playlist on YouTube and Spotify and find your next favorite song.

                                        1 hr 14 min
                                      • Godzilla Minus One - Balancing Character, Spectacle, and Story

                                        A $15 million Japanese film delivered better visual effects than Hollywood blockbusters spending ten times as much. Godzilla Minus One isn't just a great monster movie it's a case study in what happens when a director with VFX expertise controls the budget, and when a three-year script delay actually improves the final product.

                                        In this episode:

                                        • Why this film's $15M budget produced better effects than $200M American Godzilla movies — and what that says about budget allocation vs. talent
                                        • The post-war setting as a storytelling advantage: how placing characters in genuine desperation raises every scene's stakes
                                        • How Godzilla's limited screen time actually strengthens the film and why most blockbusters get this wrong
                                        • The unusual Toho/Legendary deal that keeps two competing Godzilla franchises from overlapping in theaters and streaming
                                        • What the Shinden fighter choice reveals about the film's approach to Japanese identity and pride
                                        • Character craft: why showing a protagonist's worst moment first is one of the fastest ways to build audience investment

                                          • Also discussed: Three-Body Problem book series — what Cixin Liu's writing reveals about character development through sci-fi, The Outlaws (series) — Stephen Merchant's ensemble comedy and how backstory elevates surface-level premises, Scarface (1983) — cultural ubiquity, casting choices, and whether the film holds up for a first-time viewer in 2024

                                          Timestamps:

                                          • 0:00 — What's been on our list: Three-Body Problem, The Tourist, Scarface, The Outlaws
                                          • ~20:00 — Godzilla Minus One discussion begins
                                          • The meaning of "Minus One" and the franchise timeline
                                          • The $15M budget question: how did they pull this off?
                                          • Post-war Japan as a storytelling engine
                                          • Character arc: shame, honor, and redemption
                                          • The ending: what worked and what could have been sharper
                                          • Sequel prospects and what the regeneration ending sets up

                                            •  

                                            Reach the show at [email protected]
                                            Stop by and discourage us on Instagram, X, TikTok, Discord, YouTube, and Threads

                                            https://linktr.ee/dontencourageus

                                            Listen to all the music we've discussed in every episode so far on our Encouraged Grooves playlist on YouTube and Spotify and find your next favorite song.

                                            1 hr 14 min
                                          • Fallout (2024): The Wizard of Oz Template. Plus, Is Netflix Making Bad Shows on Purpose?

                                            Is Netflix deliberately making its shows easy to ignore — and if so, what does that mean for every advertiser writing them a check? The hosts unpack the streaming advertising problem no one's naming, then turn to Amazon's $153 million bet on Fallout and find a classic storytelling template hiding underneath the wasteland.

                                            In this episode:

                                            • 0:00 — The Killing (2007): Danish crime drama, political intrigue, and when cultural specificity breaks a remake
                                            • 11:30 — The remake decision tree: what actually determines whether you dub it or rebuild it
                                            • 17:00 — Rebel Moon and the Zack Snyder problem: why the fix is obvious and why he won't take it
                                            • 27:00 — Director partnerships, ego, and why the best blockbusters have two people in charge
                                            • 33:00 — #Too2ndScreen: the case that Netflix is a billboard company selling the illusion of attention
                                            • 48:00 — Why streaming ad dollars may be worth a fraction of what platforms claim
                                            • 53:00 — YouTube as the real threat to every streaming service
                                            • 57:00 — Fallout: $153 million, a hero's journey, and the Wizard of Oz hiding in the wasteland
                                            • 1:02:00 — Retro-futurism and the alternate America that never had a counterculture
                                            • 1:06:00 — The Brotherhood of Steel as survival strategy: why cults work when everything else fails
                                            • 1:09:00 — Season 2 predictions and what the show still has to answer

                                              • Stream The Killing (2007) and Rebel Moon (2024) on Netflix. Stream Fallout (2024) on Amazon Prime.

                                              Reach the show at [email protected]
                                              Stop by and discourage us on Instagram, X, TikTok, Discord, YouTube, and Threads

                                              https://linktr.ee/dontencourageus

                                              Listen to all the music we've discussed in every episode so far on our Encouraged Grooves playlist on YouTube and Spotify and find your next favorite song.

                                              1 hr 12 min
                                            • Road House (1989) vs. Road House (2024): Why Killing Breaks One Film and Makes the Other

                                              Road House (1989) vs. Road House (2024) — full comparative breakdown.

                                              Topics discussed:

                                              • The character arc problem: 1989 Dalton grows past his need to kill, 2024 Dalton doesn't
                                              • The pool murder scene: why it breaks the 2024 character with no recovery
                                              • Bouncer culture as worldbuilding: what the 1989 version understood that the remake didn't
                                              • The samurai-warrior-in-a-bar concept: why Swayze's Dalton was unique for 80s action
                                              • Two-dimensional villains in both films and what backstory could fix
                                              • Conor McGregor: the performance, the accent, the mid-credits scene
                                              • Why the 2024 version feels written by two different people
                                              • Mentor-mentee dynamics: Sam Elliott's role vs. what's missing in 2024
                                              • Sequel pitch: the father from prison, Conor McGregor's return, and a UFC comeback arc
                                              • Dalton vs. Dalton: who wins in a fight and why calm beats rage

                                                • Also discussed:

                                                • Fallout TV series: every episode is good, no lags, must-watch
                                                • Three Body Problem: novel vs. Netflix adaptation
                                                • One Day (Netflix): why 30-minute drama episodes work better
                                                • A Midsummer Night's Dream at Sky Stage, Frederick MD
                                                • Music: Bring Me the Horizon, Beartooth, Honest Heart Collection, Fred again..

                                                  • Watch Roadhouse 1989
                                                  Watch Roadhouse 2024

                                                  Reach the show at [email protected]
                                                  Stop by and discourage us on Instagram, X, TikTok, Discord, YouTube, and Threads

                                                  https://linktr.ee/dontencourageus

                                                  Listen to all the music we've discussed in every episode so far on our Encouraged Grooves playlist on YouTube and Spotify and find your next favorite song.

                                                  1 hr 50 min
                                                • The Happening, Our Origin Story & Reality TV Pitches

                                                  Three segments from the vault a la Morty's Mind-Blowers. 

                                                  Segment 1: The Happening (2008)

                                                  • A pre-cohost episode with guests James and Eric. M. Night Shyamalan's The Happening gets the treatment it deserves, which is not much.  

                                                    • Segment 2: The Origin Story 

                                                    • Steve joins and the hosts try to figure out what Don't Encourage Us should actually be about. Keanu Reeves movies? Bitcoin? A weekly takedown of Joe Rogan? The answer, eventually, is none of those things.

                                                      • Segment 3: Reality TV Pitches 

                                                      • Pulled from an episode that died due to technical problems. Includes a pitch for an AI-generated challenge show and a layered deception format where nobody knows who's actually competing. 

                                                        • What's The Happening all about? Check out the trailer here.

                                                        Check out the SAXOPHONE GUY from Lost Boys here.

                                                        Reach the show at [email protected]
                                                        Stop by and discourage us on Instagram, X, TikTok, Discord, YouTube, and Threads

                                                        https://linktr.ee/dontencourageus

                                                        Listen to all the music we've discussed in every episode so far on our Encouraged Grooves playlist on YouTube and Spotify and find your next favorite song.

                                                        25 min

                                                      About Don't Encourage Us

                                                      From the publisher's feed

                                                      Most people watch a movie. We use it to generate new ideas.