Shooting Stars (2 page)

We are mostly large SUVs, about twenty or twenty-five of us at this point plus the Brit-mobile, and more keep coming. Richard jockeys for position, in and out, missing other cars by centimeters as he tries to get closer to the elusive celeb. Apparently it's vital to be one car ahead—one car closer—in a line of two dozen.

Interestingly, no one looks to be endangering Britney. Everyone is behind her, going as slow or fast as she does, not crowding her. It's a stark contrast to the scene at the office park minutes earlier. It makes sense though: What would be the point of overtaking the car you are trying to
follow? It's the paparazzi who own the jeopardy on the road, as well as unrelated drivers who happen to get in their way. The pedestrians could be at risk too. They gawk, confused as to what is going on as we edge curbs and ignore crosswalks hoping to gain ground against the competition.

We wind through Beverly Hills, into West Hollywood, and turn left off Sunset onto a narrow residential street, Kings Road.

“Holy shit, we're going to Paris's,” Richard says. “Them two together are big.” He informs me that Britney has been seen with the world's most famous socialite this week.

Our train inches up the steep, winding hill.
I think I can. I think I can…
Richard stands up and leans his body out the window while keeping his foot on the gas pedal and honking the horn. Cars ahead of us have stopped in the middle of the road. He cusses when he bumps the SUV in front of him (rather hard, I think), but it's another paparazzo so neither stops.

When we can't go any farther, Richard grabs his camera, jumps out, and like the others, leaves his car parked in the middle of the road. This time I get out too, running uphill a few feet behind him to a medium-sized stucco home covered in bougainvillea. It is situated on a small lot covered with vines and palm trees, and a low fence separates the property from its neighbors'. The environs remind me of Italy.

There are about twenty guys pacing in agitated circles. They are standing in the middle of the road in front of the house, their cameras dangling from their necks like wattles.

“Are we too late?” I ask. I might not be shooting, but I'm already starting to feel the desire:
I want the shot too.

Soon I learn that this is Paris's house, but that Britney is not here. No one in the group knows where she went, or at least they're not letting on if they do. The road was too curvy, and Richard was too far back in the chain to do anything but follow the car directly ahead of him. Like the others, he figured she was going to Paris's.

Richard talks to the guy whose bumper he hit, and it sounds amicable. When we hear the noise of an approaching car, everyone moves to the
side of the road, and the queen bee's GMC Yukon flies by, followed by a half dozen other ginormous vehicles.
And that's the reason it's important to be one car ahead: the closer you are to the celeb, the more likely you'll be able to keep up.

But there is no race to the cars this time. Even I, a first-timer, can tell that we would never catch up: a giant parking lot of paparazzi SUVs sits on Kings Road, and too many vehicles block one another. She will be gone in a few seconds anyway.

It's dark now, and I ask Richard how late he works. The action was barely two hours, but the adrenaline that spiked through my system has left me exhausted. “As late as it goes,” he shrugs. “But it's over today. Let's get your car.”

We drive back to Malibu at a steady pace, but it still takes an hour. When we get back, my car is the only one remaining on the dirt road outside Britney's private seaside subdivision, the Malibu Colony, where Richard and I met for the ride-along ten hours earlier. I spent the morning making “contacts”—I need this to turn into an actual job—walking from car to car through two rows of paparazzi parked on either side of the road. I was the only female among the group of mostly Latino and British men. I wasn't surprised about the lack of women per se, but I did think it was odd that there were practically no Americans. The guys all seemed to leer at me in my short skirt and tall boots too.
What was I thinking, wearing that?
Most assumed I was a tabloid reporter and chuckled when I told them I was training to be paparazzi. One of them, the only American I met, showed me his new picture of Britney: a peek-a-boo of her shaved snatch, completely bald, folds and all, which I really didn't care to see. “It's all over the Internet,” he said proudly, feathers puffed up like a mating rooster.

Apparently Britney had flashed the paparazzi when she'd gotten out of her car last week.
Who doesn't wear underwear with a short skirt when cameras are all around? Was that intentional?

The fact was, at that point, I knew very little about any celebrity. I'd lived in L.A. for a year and a half but had seen just one, Brian Austin Green, and that was on a production assistant (PA) job I'd picked up for
two days off Craigslist. And obviously, you can barely count Brian Austin Green as a celebrity.

I get out of Richard's car and am nearly run over when the Yukon barrels by me and into the private subdivision. The smaller procession, maybe five or six vehicles, is still trailing, and they again park on the shoulder of the road outside the Malibu Colony: Britney's back home.

But neither Richard nor I will wait around for a nighttime outing. I head east toward my home in Los Feliz, processing my day on the long drive.
Is it always this intense? Will I eventually be able to handle more…or start to crave more? Could it possibly kill me?

The ultimate video game is what I equate it to: spying, celebrities, chases, shooting, loot—
Will there be loot? Please, let there be loot!
—everything is here. And more—it's reality.

Britney was the prize today; the one…devoured.

Could she possibly like it?

Richard says she loves it. So does he.

* * *

After watching the Paris and Britney gangbangs (as vulgar as that sounds to me, I will soon desensitize to the term), I was in. Now I needed to figure out how to get the job.

Paparazzi firms are news agencies. Celebrity news, albeit, but they are every bit as on-call as CNN. I phone a firm whose name I find online and get right through to the owner.

“Dylan Sheen,” he answers.

“Hi Dylan,” I begin. “My name is Jennifer. I'm an amateur photographer and would like to be a paparazzi.” I use the plural since “paparazzo” doesn't seem like the right word.

“What's the difference between f4 and f10?” he asks aggressively.

“Ahhh,”—I haven't thought about that in a while—“well, f4 is a wider aperture, so you need less light. It also has a smaller depth of field.”

“What's the aperture's correlation to the shutter speed?”

When I answer that correctly too, he changes tactics.

“Well, we don't just want a picture of Britney Spears. We want a picture of Britney without any underwear on. We want pictures of Britney Spears's PUSSY.”

He makes sure to say that last word extra-loud with an emphasis on the “Pu.” Then he pauses, sure he's gotten me.

Freak,
I think.
Who says the P-word to someone they don't know?

“OK,” I say out loud.

He carries on a bit more about getting
the shot,
then suddenly has to go. “Call me back in an hour and we'll meet,” he says and hangs up.

I
really
don't want to meet Dylan. Even more, I don't want to take pictures like that.

But why would I have to? Ethical boundaries exist in every profession. I've always respected mine. I still would.

Next I try Aaron, a Scottish guy from an agency called Celebrity X News (CXN).
²
I met Aaron on the street the day of the Britney chase and while, no joke, I couldn't understand more than two consecutive words he said to me, I'm pretty sure he told me to call him if I wanted a job. Aaron answers on the first ring and puts me in touch with his boss at CXN.

From the outset, the agency seems professional, possibly because both Aaron and his boss are British, and like most Americans, I'm a sucker for the accent. I schedule an interview, thrilled not to have to call Dylan back.

* * *

Five days later, I'm at CXN's office in Venice Beach. Right off, the space feels comfortable—there are no sterile cubicles, the kind that make my chest contract in suffocation; no boring-looking people in suits poring over their computers; no beige carpet, cream walls, or uniform furniture;
no hushed voices. Everyone works in one open room with camera equipment and tabloid magazines strewn over a small floor space and large posters on the wall—blown-up pictures of celebrities in tabloids with CXN's credit line emblazoned on the bottom.

The staff introduces themselves. I meet one of the three owners, an American and former paparazzo who shot the O. J. freeway chase and used the cash he collected to start the business; two English editors, including Aaron's boss J.R.; and a secretary, also British, who says she brokers online sales.

J.R. is the staff coordinator and lead photo editor. He appears either mildly autistic or mildly drunk—at this point I'm not sure which—and takes me outside while he has a cigarette. He asks whether I'd like to work days or nights.

“Days, I guess.” That sounded better to me.

“Days pay more,” J.R. says. Lucky me.

When we get back inside, he asks if I have a sample of my work. I show him my backpacking-through-Asia photos which happen to be on my laptop: the Pushkar Festival with throngs of Indians selling camels; Ton Sai climbers hanging on rocks over the Indian Sea; Ko Phi Phi, the Thai island ravaged in the 2004 tsunami; naked Buddha statues; more naked Buddha statues.

“I don't get to see pictures like this very often,” he says as he scrolls through. “They're nice.”

He asks me one more interview question: “Have you ever been convicted of star-stalking?”

I laugh.

Pause. Pause. Pause. Pause. Like ten seconds here.

But it was a serious question. “I have to ask,” he finally says when I don't respond.

“Uh, no. I've never really been that interested in the stars.” I rarely read the tabloids and am the worst star-spotter out there. But I don't tell him that. I've always wanted to be a CIA agent too. I don't tell him that either.

J.R. has little faith in me beyond avoiding a restraining order, that much I can tell, but it's clear he's also fascinated by the prospect of hiring
me. I offer variety to the stale, mostly male paparazzi culture. Some softness. Womanness. At the moment, CXN doesn't have any female shooters. “Almost nobody does,” he says. “You'd be freelance too, pay your own expenses and find your own stories.”

Apparently I was hired. Sort of.

And why not? The risk for him was minimal, and if I were as talented as I was confident, his payoff could be big. An agency makes 40 percent of every freelance picture it sells, and one sales guy can easily market the photos of twenty or more photographers every day. The more photo contributors CXN has, the more money they make.

From J.R. I request just one thing: equipment to borrow until I can afford my own. J.R. rummages through a closet and finds a dusty camera, the kind whose batteries last not quite twenty minutes of consecutively being “on,” and some other parts I'll need. He leans out the window and takes a few test shots of a seagull on a telephone pole. “It seems to work,” he says, and hands it over.

“When I was on the streets,” J.R. offers, “my partner was a woman. She made twice the money I did.”

“Does she still work?” I ask.

“Nope. Decided to go have a baby.”

I smile at the thought. J.R. doesn't care if I'm interested in the stars and he doesn't care if I have experience. He only cares about one thing: if I can make him money. I'm another camera on the street, and a pink one to boot.

1
. Refer to the Glossary of Paparazzi Terms in the back of the book.

2
. Unless noted, names of celebrity photo agencies have been changed.

City of Angels
is a false moniker. It's vampires, not angels, that run the town. Exquisite but bloodthirsty, Los Angeles was sucking the life out of me. I was losing vision, confidence, and most of all, hope. One swift bite would kill me. And I, with my cup half-full of self-assuredness and optimism, was one of the strong ones.

Like most, I had come to the city to pursue my dream of working in “the industry,” the film and television business. I arrived eighteen months prior with a boatload of confidence and five years of solid production experience. Why wouldn't I get hired?

I applied for hundreds of positions. New postings appeared online every hour, and my résumé met many of them word for word. After a month of receiving no responses, my search broadened: waitress, coffee shop, sales girl, temp job, anything. I breathed easier when Priscilla's Coffee in Studio City hired me. But it wouldn't take care of the rent or other mounting expenses. I continued applying for production work and during the next six months received two responses to my inquiries. One resulted in the two-day Brian Austin Green gig; the other in an interview for work on a reality show, which I did not get. It seemed thousands of talented, experienced people were applying for the same jobs. Like available men in the city, there were just not enough to go around.

Eventually, I bagged the search for a TV job and spent all my free time working on my real dream: an undercover media project that I couldn't figure out how to film (and which if I told you about, I'd have to kill you). To pay the bills, I picked up odd jobs and continued
working as a barista, then waitress. A year and a half later, I had almost gone through the $12,000 my brother had lent me when I first moved to the city and wasn't sure how I'd continue to make up the discrepancy between my meager paychecks and my expenses, nor how I'd ever pay my brother back.