Ryan La Via has learned to trust his gut.
The 30-year-old Thunder Bay screenwriter wrote a short story about an experience he had while stopped at a red light beside a car with an attractive woman. Although he took some liberties with the ending, the main point remained true to the writer’s real-life situation and he said he knew immediately he had a good story on his hands.
That story proved to be award winning as La Via’s script was one of 50 chosen from 1,870 screenplays for the international 50 Kisses Screenplay competition in London, England.
He was also the only Canadian to win.
“The one thing I’m going to tell people is to trust your gut,” La Via said.
“The story wrote itself. I knew down deep that I had a story that people would laugh at. It was nerve racking. I didn’t sleep much the night before and I found out that I won via email. Breakfast tasted pretty good that morning.”
La Via, who works as a creative writer at Dougall Media, said he never intended to enter the competition and only found out about it through his Twitter feed.
His screenplay called Red Light became a hot topic on the competition’s website because of the risqué ending.
He said he never set out to make it controversial, but only wanted to tell a story.
“It’s the most talked about script in the competition that won because it’s controversial,” he said. “I took a risk writing it because I didn’t nail two aspects of the competition on the head. I didn’t make it obvious for the reader.
“One was that it was Valentine’s Day. I showed a fancy box of chocolates. It was the reader’s job to interpret it as Valentine’s Day. The second was the kiss. It happens off screen and that pissed people off.”
The next stage for La Via’s script is to be made into a short film that will be edited together with the other submissions.
La Via said he doesn’t know who will be filming his movie yet, but added that he might film it himself if no one takes on the project.
