Go Into The Story Interview (Part 5): Jeff Portnoy

An extensive conversation with the Bellevue Productions literary manager.

“That’s what I’m looking for. I’m looking for, in a perfect world, they’re great at everything. They have great ideas. They are great at executing on all levels, character, dialogue, plot structure. They have a great voice and the prose is exceptional. They’re amazing in a room.”

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 5 of a 5 part series, Jeff Jeff talks about the importance of the Black List, why it’s important for writers to generate both movie and original TV spec scripts, and the three qualities he looks for in potential writing clients.

Scott: You mentioned the Black List. What does having a client being named to the annual Black List mean to you practically speaking as a manager?

Jeff: It’s a vetting source. It’s just another validation. It’s a validation for a project. It’s validation for a writer and a project. If I have a client that gets onto the Black List, we use that as a selling tool for them, for assignments, and for their next spec. The particular script that got onto the Black List, the producers of that use that as the selling…if there are producers, the producers use it as a selling point to get it financed, to get talent attached.

If there’s no producer and it’s still an available spec, the managers and agents and the reps use that as a sales tool. If a script gets onto the Black List and it has no producers attached and it’s not set up, the reps will then, every time they send it to someone, they’ll go, “This appeared in the Black List.”

The reps are like parents. They’re always going to think the child is amazing, is special, but the people that vote for the Black List don’t have any affiliation with the writer. They’re doing it because they love the material. That speaks much more strongly to financiers and studios. When I say, “It’s on the Black List.” “Wow, that’s not easy to get on the Black List.”

Those people don’t have any incentive in voting for someone. They’re just voting because they love the material. It speaks more than the manager and agent saying that the script is awesome, the writer’s awesome. Obviously, we’re going to say that. It’s like a parent saying their son is talented. They’re expecting that.

It doesn’t move the needle for people that much, but when they said, “It was number three on the Black List,” they’re like, “That moves the needle a little bit.” Not a ton. It’s not like they’re going to make it just because of that.

It helps get the script read and taken seriously and considered more seriously if it was vetted by the professionals who had no marketing paid, had no incentive to vote for it or ulterior motive to vote for it.

It’s a tool, sales tool. It helps us. It definitely does not a hurt a project to get on the Black List. It only can help it. In some instances, it doesn’t help a ton but it helps. It has to do with where on the list it lands. If it’s at the very top, that’s going to help more. If it’s at the very bottom, it’s going to help less.

Regardless of where it lands on the Black List, just getting on is validation for the project that helps representatives sell the material or producers who are already attached to it find financing and sell it. It just always helps. There’s nothing bad that can come out of being on the Black List, for sure.

Scott: I assume you encourage your clients to write both movies and TV?

Jeff: Yes. I encourage clients to write features and TV projects. Success on either side helps in a diametric way. If you sell a feature, it helps us get a TV‑writer staffed. It helps sell a TV‑writer’s pilot. If a pilot sells or the writer gets staffed at a TV show, it’s all bullet points we can include when we send a studio a feature. It’s all vetting. Getting the material read is a struggle because there’s so much traffic and there’s so much over‑saturation of material. We’re vying for their time to read this.

Just getting it read, it helps if you can say, “They staffed on this TV show. Their last spec was on the Black List.” If that executive sits down and they’ve got 20 scripts to read and 19 of them, there’s not in the bullet points but for 1 of them it’s like, this writer’s been vetted before.

They staffed on this show, meaning a show runner liked them and hired them. They were on the Black List, meaning industry professionals voted for them. That one’s getting read first. That’s why we want these things.

It helps, absolutely. By the way, this is a lot money, jobs. There’s a lot more jobs in TV, a lot more getting produced so we absolutely advocate that, for sure.

Scott: One last question for you, when you’re looking at a potential client, a writer client, what qualities do you look for in terms of their personality or the way they approach the writing craft? What are you looking for in a potential writing client?

Jeff: There’s three major things: concept, execution, personality. Those are the three big umbrellas. Underneath the execution umbrella, there’s character and dialogue, there’s plotting and structure, there’s prose and voice, the writing itself, etc. Concept is their ideas. What kind of ideas do they have? They send me a list of 20 ideas and they’re all very generic or pedestrian. It’s not good. If the ideas are wow, that’s an original idea. That’s a really creative idea. It’s really high concept. That’s going to get me excited. Personality is usually something that’s already baked in. Personality will help a writer get open writing assignments and staffing assignments.

Assignments are very social sport, especially TV staffing. I got to factor all those things in. I deal with the writer. I’m going to evaluate their personality. I’m going to read their samples. That’s their ability to execute. Then I’m going to read all their ideas.

The things that I can help the client improve on the most is concept. The thing I help with them the least is personality. Then execution, absolutely, I can help them improve on execution. Character, dialogue is harder to help them improve. Plotting and structure is a little easier for a manager to come in.

If they write great character and dialogue and they have a great personality but the plotting and structure is a little weak and the concept, originality is a little weak, we’ll probably be a good team. I will help them vet their own ideas and try to lock in on a really unique high concept idea.

Then I’ll also help. Structure is more mathematical. It’s more formulaic. We can work on trying to hit those beats at the right time, keep the mementos. Character and dialogue is very organic thing that’s harder to help a writer improve on.

Personality is like, by the time I meet them, they’re usually in their very youngest, in their early 20’s. More often than not, they’re in their late 20’s or early 30’s or 30’s or 40’s. There’s nothing I’m going to do there. There’s nothing I can change there.

That’s what I’m looking for. I’m looking for, in a perfect world, they’re great at everything. They have great ideas. They are great at executing on all levels, character, dialogue, plot structure. They have a great voice and the prose is exceptional. They’re amazing in a room.

Does everyone have everything full house all the time? No. That’s my job, is to help identify where their weaknesses are and help them improve on their weaknesses. Then we see a difference in their career soon after, when that happen.

For Part 1 of the interview, go here.

Part 2, here.

Part 3, here.

Part 4, 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.