Westworld, Do the Right Thing & Managing Audience Reception

An excerpt from our new podcast about HBO's "Westworld" and a discussion about Spike Lee's "Do the Right Thing" set the stage for an insightful discussion about how an audience responds to your film.

A few weeks ago JD, Yolanda and I apparently felt like we didn't have enough time arguing and debating with each other on "Radio Film School", so we decided to take our passionate debates to a new "frontier"—HBO's "Westworld." Our new podcast "Wrestling with Westworld" is a weekly fun, funny, and engaging discussion about the new hit show. On the very first episode, we had a great conversation about audience reception and a filmmaker's ability to effectively and accurately convey their message to the audience. I felt it would be very informative to share with my RFS audience.

As a follow up to the "Westworld" convo, I share a discussion that JD and I originally had last year about "Do the Right Thing". In it we address Spike Lee's comments that he believes the Danny Aiello character, Sal, is a racist, whereas both JD and I don't necessarily think he is. As the writer/director, did Spike do a good job of communicating to the audience that Sal is indeed a racist? That's what we explore. Special "guest star" appearance by filmmaker Ryan Booth.

Music in this Episode

Music was curated from FreeMusicArchive.org. In order of appearance, the music in this episode was:

Fire Aheadby Jahzzar (CC B-SA)Black Lungby Broke for Free (CC BY)Night Owl by Brokefor Free (CC BY)Old Western Firefightby Cullah (CC BY-SA)Western Firefight 2by Cullah (CC BY-SA)

Click here to learn about Creative Commons licenses and meanings.

Reach Out

If you have a question about the movie business you'd like answered, or if you just want to drop us a line to say "Hi", email us at [email protected]. Better yet, use the "Send Voicemail" button at the bottom of our website to leave a voicemail message. Follow Ron on Twitter @DareDreamerFM, or follow the show @RadioFilmSchool. Join the discussion at facebook.com/radiofilmschool.