Go Into The Story Interview (Part 3): Jeff Portnoy

An extensive conversation with the Bellevue Productions literary manager.

“I want to stack the deck. I want them to write something that can stand up to the highest amount of scrutiny. You want a great concept, great execution.”

Jeff Portnoy is a literary manager at Bellevue Productions. Prior to joining Bellevue, Jeff worked at Creative Artists Agency, The Gotham Group, Resolution talent agency and Heretic Literary Management.

I met Jeff a year or so ago at a Black List Live! event in Los Angeles and we had a good discussion about the business. I made a mental note to get back to him for an interview. Then Amber Alexander, one of the 2018 Black List Feature Writers Lab participants, recently landed a writing gig adapting the horror novel “Snowblind” for Zoic Studios. When she emailed me to share the good news, she connected me with Jeff who is her manager.

Jeff and I ended up having about a 45-minute conversation covering a lot of territory which promises to be both interesting and helpful reading for Go Into The Story readers.

Today in Part 3 of a 5 part series, Jeff discusses how critically important it is for writers to work with the strongest story concepts when writing a spec script.

Scott: How important is the story concept to the commercial viability of a spec script?

Jeff: When it comes to taking out a spec and selling a spec in this market, which is one of the toughest markets that’s ever existed, it’s got to have a really great hook. That’s one thing that’s stayed constant. People have to hear the logline and go, “Whoa, I get it. I see the hook.” It has to have something where people see the idea right away and see the trailer.

The only way around having a hook and a great idea, is if you can somehow get the script into the hands of name talent, i.e. a director or actor. Once a director or actor’s attached, the importance of concept (and quality for that matter) diminishes as the project will be subject to less scrutiny. Right now, I have a writer who’s writing a new feature spec. It’s an original idea. I make sure that they write it within the right budget range. I push really hard to make sure the idea’s really unique and is really exciting.

A couple of examples off the top of my head, I recently had a writer sell a spec about a woman who got pregnant with twins and finds out that they both belong to two different biological fathers, which if you didn’t know, is a real medical phenomenon.

Scott: That’s Savion Einstein, right?

Jeff: Yes, Savion Einstein. The script set up at Screen Gems. That idea was a logline when I saw it. Right away, I just said, “You got something, boom.” I called her up and read the script. We did some work on it. Right away, every time I pitched that, people just were like, “Wow.” Almost no one knew it was a real medical phenomenon.

Even those who did never seen anyone try attempt to make a script about it. It was just like, “Boom, send it, send it, send it.” You need to have ideas like that.

I have other examples that are like that. That one just is one of the more recent successes that my clients have had. It’s things like that. You need to have those ideas.

But I’ve also had clients write scripts where the ideas are not so unique. The loglines all sound the same. There’s a CIA or FBI operative who has to infiltrate such and such warlord and then stop such and such bad guy and then the double crosses the cartel and then there’s the hitman or assassin and it’s a race against time to stop them before it’s too late, blah blah. You’ve seen these. These are garden variety kind of generic ideas. There are dozen. I typically read these as writing samples. If they writing is great, if the writer is talented and can execute well, I will sign them and then encourage them to develop more unique ideas that sound less familiar.

Even if they’re extremely well executed, they more familiar concepts are harder to get traction because the idea is so basic and straightforward and common. Now, the only thing that trumps that is talent. If you know a producer and the producer knows the director and the producer says, “Look, this director is looking for another thriller.” Through relationships, that script winds up in that director’s hands. That director says, “I’ll do this.”

Once they’re attached, the importance of having a really fresh, unique idea goes out the window a little bit. You have a less talent tap, so you’re a little bit more impervious to scrutiny.

When you’re out with a project, someone might read it and go, “Let’s see. A cop who’s about to retire. He goes on one last mission. Then he has to race against time before the bad guy, the cartel, the assassin,” and all that generic stuff we’ve seen before, they keep it to themselves because talent is attached.

You know what I’m saying? An A‑list director or actor is attached, they’re like, “It could make money.” Just the actor’s name alone or the director’s name alone is going to bring in a certain amount of profit and fill a certain amount of seats.

I don’t let my clients bank on the prospect of talent becoming attached prior to us shopping the script to buyers which would naturally diminish the scrutiny level their script will face. I want to stack the deck. I want them to write something that can stand up to the highest amount of scrutiny. I want the script to be able to sell without attachments, which is the hardest thing. Then the execution has to be great, too. You want a great concept, great execution.

Scott: You’ve mentioned Savion. I worked with her in the 2014 Blacklist Lab in Las Vegas on a different project.

Jeff: She’s awesome.

Scott: She told me the idea for the script you mentioned “Superfecundation.”

Jeff: Yeah, yeah.

Scott: I said, “That’s a great idea. You got to write that.”

Jeff: You were right. She put a lot of work into that script. There’s a director and actor attached now but we sold the script to the studio as a spec and then the package came together after the sale.

When I first heard the concept for Superfecundation, I said, “Holy shit, I can sell that. I can get people excited. That will open doors. That’ll get our calls answered.” If the story were about a woman and a man who meet and fall in love and then they fall out of love, I would have been like, “Pass, what’s your next idea?” Of course, once a writer or director or hyphenate becomes a major success, they actually can sell a basic story like that because they’re a brand name who the studios trust. But in the early stages of a writers career, concept is very important. It has to be great.

There’s a spectrum in this business. When you’re at the outer perimeter of the industry, you have to do your absolute best on every level, concept, execution, your personality. The closer to that inner core of the business you get and the more success you have and the bigger of a name you become, the less is expected, really. It’s incumbent upon you, the artist, to continue to perform well.

We got someone like Steven Spielberg who could have started phoning it in a decade ago but he’s so scrutinized himself. He self‑scrutinizes. Because of that, because he’s so hard on himself, he continues to produce some really great material but he could have easily just…no one’s ever going to give him notes and say, “This needs work. That needs work.”

A lot of writers and directors, as they get more successful, it’s all ‘yes men’ around them all the time and then they start drinking the Kool‑Aid. You have to be self‑scrutinizing to keep succeeding after you’ve reached a certain level. There’s still a few people that really do that are really critical on themselves. No one else has to be really, because they’re self‑critical.

Tomorrow in Part 4, Jeff provides his take on the state of the current spec script market.

For Part 1 of the interview, go here.

Part 2, here.

For Variety’s “Hollywood’s New Leaders: Agents and Managers” feature which included Jeff, go here.

Twitter: @Jeff_Portnoy.

For nearly 200 Go Into The Story interviews with screenwriters, filmmakers, and Hollywood insiders, go here.