And finally it feels like I turn a corner. No, I didn’t have the instinct to “go back,” as Simon had directed, but I did have the instinct to seek out the scene in the first place, and then to shoot it. Today is a turning point for me in confidence. Now, just like Donna and Elif, I’m not worried. It’s gonna roll from here.
Chapter 9
Confident in the money too, Alexandra (one of “the girls”) and I go jeans shopping. I buy Citizens in straight leg black, Hudsons in boot-cut washed, and Sevens in skinny blue. And just in the nick of time too.
A text from Jed, my former coworker at Tropicalia reads:
The guy from Entourage with the curly black hair is at Farfalla.
“Man,” I say to Elif, “I hate getting nighttime tips.” I’ve worked all day and edited into the evening, so another set means I’ll be working till ten and then editing into the night. That means nighttime tips are only worth doing if I think I can make enough on them to circumvent my following day’s doorstep. ’Cause I’ll sleep in. Besides, “flashing someone up,” as night shots inevitably do, at a neighborhood restaurant—especially one in my neighborhood right next to where I used to work—is humiliating. With giant bursts of flash, everyone looks. And beyond humiliating, in this case, “the guy from Entourage with the curly black hair,” is Adrian Grenier—my neighbor, my age, my type, and at least semi-single. Though I don’t stand a chance with Adrian, I’m not going.
No, apparently I am going. Elif makes me go find Adrian. She’s like a kid with a new Christmas BB gun, way too keyed up about her novel profession to let any tip go by. And, she does not think Adrian is cute in the slightest thus couldn’t care less about “looking cool.”
The location is only a few blocks away from my house, but we drive so we can stay in the car as long as possible. I’ve never shot Adrian and know nothing about his attitude toward paps. Since I don’t know if I need to hide, I need to hide. Non-gangbang nighttime shots are tricky; you might be able to get one shot off before you’re seen, so if the celeb is gonna cover, that first shot better be it.
Adrian is alone when he steps from the restaurant. My choice would be to wait longer (until he’s gone), but Elif sees him too and is out of the car. I have no choice but to follow.
I squat in front of him, shooting him, relieved the camera is blocking my face.
Adrian stands still and stares at me. Eventually, it becomes silly. I have enough shots of Adrian standing still staring at me. I put the camera down and stare back.
“What are you doing?” he says.
“Uh. Taking your picture.”
“We’re paparazzi,” I add. Elif is recording video, but she’s not confident in her English so never says anything. Right now, I’m not confident in my English either. I pull the camera back up to my face not knowing what else to do and take more pictures of Adrian standing still staring at me. I put the camera down again.
“What are two cute girls doing being paparazzi?” he asks.
“I don’t know, we just are.” Did Adrian Grenier just call me cute?
“I’m working on a documentary about the paparazzi,” he offers.
“Yeah? Maybe you should ride along with me sometime. See how it works.” My voice shakes but I manage to extend this very important offer.
“Maybe I will.”
Adrian’s friend walks out, a girl who doesn’t look like a girlfriend. “What’s going on?” she asks.
“We’re shooting Adrian Grenier,” I respond.
She laughs. At him, not us, then corrects my mispronunciation. “It’s Gren-YAY. French.” I had said “Gren-YEAR.”
Now I’m the one standing still staring. I am not starstruck, but beautystruck. Adrian is breathtaking. I never knew he looked like this. He did not look like this in The Devil Wears Prada. And honestly, there is something going on between us. I do not lie.
When his car is pulled around by the valet, Adrian hugs the girl and walks to his Prius. (In L.A., celebrity or not, there’s no getting around valets. You cannot park your own car in this town.) I kneel in front of him again, shuffling backward as he walks toward me. His teeth blind the frames. Then he waves good-bye.
When we get back to the truck, Elif turns to me. “What went wrong with you, Jennifer? I never seen you like that.”
I ignore her, but she’s right. I have no idea what just happened.
* * *
Two weeks after our first encounter, I see Adrian again, this time on the set of Entourage. The HBO series about the movie business films at the en vogue places in Beverly Hills and West Hollywood, and no surprise, the crew is very tolerant of paps. A group of us are shooting the scenes from across the street with long lenses when Adrian sees me, points, and motions for me to come closer. I can hear my heart thud, and I immediately start to tremble. Be cool, Jennifer. Be cool. He’s just another guy.
I walk toward the foldout chair with his name on it. When I get to him, I put out my hand. “Hi. I’m Jennifer.”
“Hi. Adrian,” he grins, taking it.
In front of the cast, crew, and other paps, we talk. Mostly, he talks—I’m that nervous—for what has to be five minutes. About what, I do not remember. All I care is that
Adrian pointed at me.
Adrian remembers me.
Adrian flirts with me.
Maybe Adrian will ride along with me.
Then, maybe…
“See you around,” he says when he gets called back to set.
“Yea. OK,” I stammer back. Then I turn and hop on cloud nine, which transports me back to my car. I do not rejoin the flock of birds still gathered outside the set. I am no longer one of them. I am one of him. At least today.
* * *
Memorial Day marks the official beginning of Malibu’s summer. If you’re a shy celebrity, go to Beverly Hills this weekend ’cause you won’t see us: we’re all at the beach.
Over the weekend, Elif and I spend the larger part of each day outside Aniston’s house. Word on the street: she’s home. And we’re determined this time. We deserve it. Not to mention how infuriating it would be to see someone else get what we’ve spent so much time pursuing this spring.
By Monday at three, things are looking grim. No sign of Jennifer all weekend. I take off to the Country Mart to get some food while Elif stays on the sit.
“Jen. Copy. Jen. Copy,” Aaron chirps with intent.
“Go ahead.”
“You at Aniston’s? Her car just pulled up.”
“Copy. I’m at the Country Mart. Turning around now.”
“Copy. Let me know when you’re near.”
On holiday weekends, paps troll up and down the PCH looking inside car windows for celebrities. A celeb in her front seat would be hard-pressed to make it through Malibu without being spotted on a holiday like Memorial Day. Besides, Jen drives a rare green Range Rover, so by being just slightly aware, and in the right place at the right time, Aaron had seen her pull out of Courteney Cox’s driveway, drive a few blocks, then pull into hers. No question now: Jennifer Aniston is home.
I call Elif. She’s on alert on the ocean side of the house but with only a video camera. I need to be there too. There are no shortcuts down the Pacific Coast Highway, and with holiday traffic it takes me twenty minutes to get back two miles. I see someone pulling out of a street parking space as I drive up. Score.
Aaron and I quickly make a plan. We decide to ignore the front. She could leave again in her car, but we believe a potential beach shot to be far more valuable so opt to put all our efforts there. Plus, we don’t want our competitors to see us waiting outside her house and get confirmation she’s home.
Aaron goes in from the north side near Courteney’s house, and I go in from the south. A few other paps also spotted Jen’s car and apparently have the same idea. Elif, Aaron, and I meet up and find a spot on the sand a few houses down from Aniston’s. Three other paps sit nearby. Though cameras are hidden in bags, you can see that all the paps have their hands on the trigger
s. If shooting starts, with six of us it will be impossible to hide. We have to get an early shot before she sees us, or hope she’ll give it up.
Five minutes later, like ducks, they roll off the deck: Jen, Courteney, and David Arquette holding his daughter CoCo.
“This is big,” Aaron whispers.
“Both Friends!” says Elif.
We wait for them to descend the stairs and begin to walk before pulling out our cameras. We want them committed to the sand. David spies us first, yells and shields CoCo’s face with his hand. Jen and Courteney put their heads down, and soon Courteney breaks off from the others. She knows that a picture of her and Jen, or one of her and her family, is significantly more valuable than any picture of each separately. It’s a much more interesting story for the mags if “Jen and Courtney, BFFs, take a beach walk,” versus if each walks alone. David and Jen soon separate too.
Jennifer is wearing cut-off jean shorts and a T-shirt. Her hair is perfectly styled, long and thick. Her face is made up naturally, and her body is expertly toned. She looks just like she has for the last fifteen years. After the first few paces off the deck, Jen pops her head back up. She’s giving it up gracefully.
Alternating with Aaron, the two of us go back and forth between Courteney and Jen—mostly Jen, she’s the most valuable—as we walk backward in front of them down the beach. We ignore David, who has little star power even with a child in his arms. Elif trails me, shooting video.
Adrenaline floods my body, making the surroundings blur and time freeze. The walk down the beach could have taken two minutes or ten. I’m not sure. There was no time; there was only now. All of us—the six paparazzi and three-and-a-half celebrities—are spread out haphazardly, like a few freckles on a hand. A couple of times I pause to catch my breath while taking it in. It strikes me that the paps look like buzzards, running in semicircles around their prey, swooping in and out, feasting and backing off, eating and retreating.
Running backward in the sand is challenging, and a couple of times I fall. Once, I sit winded looking up directly into Jennifer’s eyes. She has to step around me. I feel like a twit, but not because of the way she looks at me. Jennifer seems kind and doesn’t make me feel inferior. Even if she’s not a fan of the paparazzi, Jen understands the media. You’ll never see her with a scowl, she never looks belligerent, and rarely does she fully cover. (Only the partial hand sweep cover she’s so good at.)
Before the group steps into a neighbor’s party, Jen looks back at us and waves. “Happy Memorial Day,” she says to the cameras.
Elif and I don’t talk when it’s over. Words aren’t powerful enough. We had waited so many hours, so many days, wondering in our hearts if it would ever happen. We’re as high as the holiday blimp above our heads.
I ring Bartlet. In a metaphor too vulgar to be repeated, he explains why my Memorial Day weekend is similar to an orgasm, then he says, “Get the pictures in fast,” and hangs up.
Aaron takes my card, gives me a big kiss on the lips, and goes to Starbucks to edit and send the images. Mags usually “close” for that week’s stories by Monday morning, but because it’s Memorial Day a few will hold out till the afternoon. Aaron and I assume we have similar images to the other three paps since we all had plenty of time to nail it. Our sales will be determined by how quickly we get the pictures to market and how Bartlet negotiates.
Meanwhile, Elif and I go back to “protect the story.” The idea is that if you already have pictures, then you need to stay on the story so you don’t get scooped—a philosophy I don’t really buy in to. If a shot’s gonna scoop yours, then it is, whether you’re there or not. When I get back to Jen’s house, about twenty paps are gathered in front—word spreads quickly on holiday weekends. And, although not much would trump our shots, when a celebrity the size of Jen Aniston is inside for sure, paps will be outside for sure. I find out that Jen had gone to the neighbor’s party for a brief appearance then walked back to her house on the PCH (a shot we’d missed, but one I never saw print).
Channing (Rodeo2) calls me an hour later. He asks if he can buy the video and some of the photos. In other words, he wants me to “split the set,” a common practice among freelancers, but one that is frowned upon by most agencies because it reduces the value of individual pictures. I tell him that’s impossible; I was working with a staffer on the stills, and CXN already knows about the video. This is kind of a bummer though. Channing would have given Elif at least a thousand for her video. As it stands, CXN still hasn’t sold any of her videos, and this Aniston clip will be no exception. (Over the next few weeks, I cultivate a relationship with Channing. He pays us $500 cash on the spot for any decent videos we bring him. That ends up being a lot better deal than waiting for CXN to never sell them.)
We wait till dusk before we leave. Any night shot that might happen later will likely be far less valuable than our day shots and won’t compete for the same story anyway.
But so much more significant than any shot I took, or will ever take of Jennifer Aniston, was the transformation that occurred today, six months into my paparazzi life. As I stood there outside Aniston’s house, protecting my story, side by side with guys who still mostly hated me, something changed. I could tell it from their eyes. Subtly, and for the first time in my pap career, their looks were filled with deference. A few of them nodded at me, some quietly mumbled congratulations, and one even asked for a recap.
No pap moment thus far could compete with the pride I felt when three savages, as Simon calls all beastly and bad-mannered paparazzi, patted me on the back for getting Jennifer Aniston.
The tables had turned.
Side note: I barely made any money on the Jennifer Aniston shots. No one was messing with me, but there were almost no sales. A few of the competitors’ photos printed, but not many, and there were no re-sales that I ever noticed. Bartlet couldn’t be blamed. He was as surprised as Aaron and I were. “There’s just no interest,” he said. “Apparently she’s boring.”
And, it seems, that’s how she likes it. So until Jen gets with her next Hollywood-man-du-jour (John Mayer it turns out), forcing us to take notice, one of the most famous women in the world will live virtually pap-free.
Chapter 10
Like most jobs, I find the longer I work as a pap, the more predictable the job becomes. But unlike in most jobs, I welcome the routine.
At CXN, most days begin on a doorstep. We get our assignment at six the evening before, through an email or call. We have input: if we’ve seen someone during the day but not “nailed it,” for example, that celebrity may be a good target for the next day. We will also use gossip gleaned on the street from talking to other paps about celebrities’ whereabouts.
Mostly though, the paparazzi do their research on the Web. All day, office staff scans the blog sites, and in the evenings paps do this too. We check who’s appearing on the talk shows so we know which celebs are at home in L.A., and who’s traveling in New York. Later, when Twitter becomes a phenomenon, both “people on the street” and the stars themselves will inform us of their whereabouts. The Internet tells us both if a celebrity is in town and if he or she is selling. It is hands down most responsible for the increase in paparazzi activity over the last few years—celebs are just not that hard to find these days.
Rarely do we pick a doorstep randomly. If a celebrity hasn’t been photographed or spotted in a while, we assume he or she isn’t in town until he or she turns up again, often in formal pictures—red carpets or charity events—or sometimes in a candid pap shot. We also do drive-by reccys, i.e., reconnaissance (British), of a celebrity’s home looking for signs of inhabitance: blinds going up and down, lights going on and off, cars moving in and out, etc. It strikes me as being like thieves, but the only thing we want to steal here is a good shot of the celeb. Remember, we’re great anti-robber defense.
While I’m paid as a freelancer, I’ve latched on tight, so CXN treats me like staff. I always hope to be partnered with Aaron, who I still have
a pretty significant crush on, but J.R.’s in charge of assignments and he spreads me around the staff, which is productive since I learn something different from everyone. It’s been a half year since I started papping, but my learning curve is still straight up vertical.
Being prompt is key to not wasting our day. We should arrive at the doorstep of our chosen celebrity home by eight or eight-thirty. But not being a morning person, I’m more likely to end up there at nine. The danger of arriving much later (or even that late) is that celebrities do things. They often get up early to go walk or jog, get coffee, or drive to work. Most of them do not sleep in all day. Of course, a doorstep might also be out of town or spending the night out and we don’t know it. Sometimes we see them come home, which really isn’t that bad ’cause now, at least, we know they are there and may go out again. All in all, doorstepping is a fine way to catch a celebrity, but generally it pans out only about 25 percent of the time.
On the way to the doorstep each morning, if we’re not working alone, we Nextel our partner, exchange ETAs, and discuss the layout of the house, the cars, where to park, whether to hide, and so on. When we arrive, the first thing we do is drive by the house to look for the celeb’s car or signs of life. Changes may occur during the day, so we need to get the lay of the land. Next, we check for competition. Paps are easy to spot. We look in places where we might choose to sit, and for people (usually Latino males) sitting in parked cars (usually SUVs with dealer plates). Sometimes a sunshade will be covering the front windshield of a competitor’s car. It is also likely the car is heavily tinted, and a window is usually cracked open. If the window isn’t cracked, then the engine’s on for the a.c. The occupant is often sitting in the back seat. If we know the competitor, we might acknowledge one another with a nod, but neither of us is happy to see the other.
If there are more than four competitors on a doorstep, everyone stops hiding. With that many cars, it’s impossible to pull off a stealth follow, so we have to hope the celeb will give it up. If it’s a doorstep of a celeb who will never give it up (an Olsen twin, for instance), we might cut our losses and leave.
Shooting Stars Page 12
