ORLANDO, Fla. (FNN NEWS) – With the Orlando Film Festival in full swing, many filmmakers have descended on Cobb Plaza Cinema Cafe 12, showcasing their movies to the people of Orlando. On Sunday, directors Daniel and Walt Woltosz spoke with Florida National News about their timely drama Do Not Reply.

Do Not Reply depicts a child abduction that happens with contacts through social media and the Internet. The idea and script originated a while before social media became such a huge part of people’s lives. Director Daniel Woltosz said, “about 20 years ago, I wrote the original script and it had to do with the dangers of meeting someone online in AOL chat rooms.” Then a couple of years ago, Walt and Daniel Woltosz wanted to make the original script into a movie, but the script was dated. After researching how most social media abductions happen today, they found out that the growth of cell phones among teens and partially teen girls has led to more predators finding people on the internet. Daniel Woltosz said, “we then basically started from page one and rewrote the story, but around the same concept, and even some of the same character names.”

The film had been in production from December 2016 when the Woltoszes started to update the script to fit more with modern technology. Once updated, Daniel Woltosz shared that filming began in January 2018 and it was a five-week shoot. This was Daniel and Walt’s first time as directors, but the cast and crew were great about that. The cast also features some big names in film and television such as Amanda Arcuri (Degrassi: Next Class), Kerri Medders (SEAL Team), and Jackson Rathbone from (The Twilight Saga).

Since the film depicts the dangers of social media, particularly for children and teens, the directors want the film to watch by children and teens. “We do not want this film to be a horror film. There is an element of horror, but we wanted to make it believable,” Walt clarified. Daniel added, “We do want to reach teens, particularly teenage girls since they are the most targeted by predators on social media, and we want to reach the parents of teens to know the dangers of this.” In the end Walt Woltosz said, “The goal here is to have a social message out there and not just make a movie.”

Do Not Reply will screen twice at the Orlando Film Festival: The first screening happens on October 22, 2019 at 4:15pm and the second on October 24, 2019 at 2:30pm.

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Leyton Blackwell is a Florida National News contributor. | info@floridanationalnews.com

NEW ORLEANS, La. (FNN NEWS) – The final night of the three-day sold-out 2018 Essence Festival was packed with top performers, including Janet Jackson, Fantasia, Teddy Riley and others at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome…but the action wasn’t only onstage or in the Superlounges.

Before or after stars would grace a stage, they would also do press junkets, and many did one-on-one interviews. Singer/songwriter MAJOR, who rose to fame with what has become the new wedding anthem, “This Is Why I Love You,” is one of the many artists who chose to do one-on-one interviews on the final night of the festival, and got a major surprise.

During MAJOR’s one-on-one interview with Florida National News, R&B legends Teddy Riley and Keith Sweat, who had just finished an interview with The Recording Academy, crashed the interview. MAJOR was instantly starstruck. He stopped the interview to greet and honor them both. When he tried to return to the interview, he was also greeted by Jeriel Johnson, Executive Director of The Recording Academy’s Washington, D.C. chapter, who MAJOR immediately calls out while the camera was still rolling. “Hey, brother. You didn’t call me not once…I was like, ‘oh, so you out here?'”

MAJOR was elaborating on his style influences when he got the surprise. Once the moment passed, he spoke about the power of Keith Sweat and Teddy Riley’s inspiration and influence on not only his music, but on everyone.

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Willie David and Mellissa Thomas contributed to this report. | news@floridanationalnews.com

DAYTONA, Fla. (FNN NEWS) – Florida’s rain or intense heat did not stop thousands of fans from kicking off the first day of the 2018 Country 500 Music Festival at Daytona International Speedway.

The Country 500 Music Festival is an annual Memorial Day weekend celebration in the infield of the world-famous Daytona International Speedway. This year, fans were entertained on opening day by Dierks Bentley, Randy Houser, A Thousand Horses, Frankie Ballard, the James Barker Band, High Valley, Lindsay EII and DJ Dirty.

The James Barker Band opened the music fest as headliner Dierks Bentey closed out the night on the main stage, delighting the crowd with hit after hit.

Two more days of County 500 will continue on Saturday with headliners Billy Currington and Chris Stapleton, and closing out Sunday with performances by country stars Sugarland and Toby Keith.