'You Have To Be Persuasive And Sell Something No One Believes In': Boris Kachka On Book 'Becoming A Film Producer'

(CBS Local)-- In Hollywood, actors and directors are the people who get most of the attention and praise when a movie hits the big screen, but much less often do film producers get the same kind of love. A lot goes into producing a movie, but many people don't actually know what the life of a film producer looks like.

Los Angeles Times book editor Boris Kachka wanted to answer that question and much more in his new book from Simon & Schuster called "Becoming A Film Producer." In the book, Kachka talks with established award-winning producers like Fred Berger and Michael London who brought movies like "La La Land" and "Sideways" to move theaters across the world. The author chats also with an up and coming producer named Siena Oberman about what her career looks like today.

CBS Local's DJ Sixsmith recently sat down with Kachka to take a deeper look at the role of the film producer.

"There was a producer I talked to who was on a set once and an actor came by who had just been on a tough shoot and the person said 'what are you guys doing here and what do you do all day,'" said Kachka. "Her friend who was another producer said we're pilots. We get the plane in the air, we fuel it up, we make sure the wings are not on fire and we make sure you come down safely. That's what producers do and that's why it was compelling to me to write about their jobs. They're hard to define and it was part of the fun to define who are they are and what they do."

Kachka learned that film producers jobs are really hands on and require management of multiple things at one time. A film producer could be on set dealing with several different crises or working the phones to address budget concerns or attempting to land a big actor or director for a film.

"You have to be persuasive and confident and sell something no one believes in at the beginning," said Kachka. "The diversity of skills and toggling of activity in your life and brain seemed really exciting to me. La La Land took seven years to make and the producer stuck with it the whole time. There were all kinds of machinations and actors dropping out and the studio wanted to put different producers in. They stuck with it because they believed in the story. The same thing with Sideways. Michael London went out on his own. He was working as an executive for a long time and he had this friend who had this script that was basically an unpublished book. It was called Two Guys On Wine. He believed in it and knew Alexander Payne was the right director for it. Payne had all kinds of other obligations. Ultimately the script is what attracted Payne. The script is the most powerful thing and a producer's persistent over years is what it takes to get a movie made."

"Becoming A Film Producer" is available now wherever books are sold.