Jason Bortz (John Black) began acting at nine years old. By the time he graduated from South Eugene High School in Eugene, OR, he had performed or crewed in over two dozen plays and commercials. In Seattle, he trained with director/producer John Jacobsen of Seattle’s prestigious “The Film School” and was a core member of the Seatlle Int’l Film Festival’s “Cinema Co-Op Screenplay Series”, where he workshopped scripts with the likes of Tom Skerritt, Peter Horton and D.B. Sweeney.

From there, he moved to New York City and received training at the National Shakespeare Conservatory before moving to Los Angeles, where he worked as an acting coach to continue his pursuit of film, landing principle roles in the Sundance Golden Circle selection "Slaves to the Underground," the Lionsgate release "Fugitive Hunter" and most recently "The Bill Collector." His experiences as a lifelong actor have been invaluable as a writer/director; Jason has filmed over a dozen short films, several of them award-winners on the festival circuit, including a

documentary on the AIDS pandemic in Kenya.

As a screenwriter, he has optioned two feature film scripts and is currently in the final stages of development before heading into pre-production on his first full length feature. In the Sacramento community, he was a founding member of the Capital Film Arts Alliance, has instructed at the Art Institute of Sacramento, El Dorado Performing Arts Institute, and Rocklin Youth Theatre. He has been seen numerous times as a Consultant on Sacramento’s “Good Day Sacramento” morning show, and coaches acting privately at his home in Roseville, CA, where he lives with his wife Jennifer, his son Caleb and daughter Clarity. He is represented by the Silver/Bitela Agency;

representative credits can be found on IMDb.com.