Shooting Stars (5 page)

Donna takes my car to go get ready for the party, and I hop in Aaron's. He looks at my photos, says “they're soft,” i.e., out of focus, and thinks we should stick around for her to exit.
No problem. I'll wait with you all night.

After two hours, the sun's almost set and we'll still need to edit and change before the party. “We can't be bothered much longer,” says Aaron.

“How long do you usually wait?”

“No specific time. Five minutes, five hours, more. Ya never know. Gotta figure out if they're worth it.”

A door on the exterior of the building has been left ajar. Twice, we see Paris walk down the hall to the bathroom.

“I've got an idea,” says Aaron. “Next time she hits the
loo
, we'll talk to her.”

“You can do that?”

“Sure. Why not? It's Paris.”

From our strategic position in his blacked-out 4Runner, we see her enter the bathroom for a third time. We get out, move inside the building, and stand next to the restroom door with our cameras in hand, but down. We hear her washing her hands. She exits. Aaron twinkles his blue eyes and says, “Hey luv, could we just take a few frames? Then we'll go and leave you alone.”

Paris pauses. I'm not sure she can understand his accent. She says, “Is my driver here yet?” (The Audi girl left after she walked Paris inside.)

“Please, Paris. Just a couple of shots?” Aaron requests again.

“Not yet. I don't have my makeup on,” Paris squeaks in a high voice that Aaron says is not typical (he says she's lovely in every way), then turns and walks back to the “Acting Studio” from where she came.

“Do you always give them an option?” I ask, perplexed.

“I try to, but usually I'm asking while I'm shooting.”

So then they are generally
not
given an option.

Aaron explains that someone “hard to get,” Jennifer Aniston for instance, is never asked. Then he tells me about the iconic picture of Britney when she had her baby in her lap in the front seat of her car. He says that Britney came out with the baby that day and asked the paparazzi not to take her picture. “I'm not in the mood,” she said. So, they didn't shoot her. But then, when she got into the car like
that,
they of course had to.

I like hearing this from Aaron. It confirms what I've thought all along: while others may be vultures, at least some of us have discretion with the pictures we take.

We head back to the car to wait. It's completely dark when a large blacked-out Escalade pulls up. The car stays running with the driver inside. I wondered how we were going to know when Paris's driver was here. Aaron said he'd know. Now I know too.

He sends me to knock on the “Acting Studio” door. “Tell Paris her driver's here.”

My brows V-down in protest.
Is this part of the job?

“It's fine.” He laughs. “Remember, it's not Brad Pitt. It's just Paris.”

I
wish
it were Brad Pitt; though he might be less receptive of our inquiries.

I follow orders, knock, and crack open the studio door. Paris isn't in view, but I relay the news to the staff, who respond with confused faces and silence.
Is this how it works?
they wonder too.

I return outside, and Aaron and I flank the exterior door. He tells me to “just keep shooting” when she comes out, and shows me how she will walk from the door to the car. Though only because I ask. I don't think he's counting on me to get the shot.

Paris's driver is dressed in a dark suit and is now holding the vehicle's back door open in anticipation of her arrival. He doesn't seem fazed by our presence; maybe this isn't unusual. The SUV is so high he's put a small step down for her use. There's a streetlight illuminating the scene. I almost can hear the sound of the clapboard, “Take One,” then some voice yelling, “Action,” and then Shakespeare's famous words:

“All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players; they have their exits and their entrances.”

Then, she enters. Paris keeps her chin held high and smiles—at Aaron. She seems to know exactly who's taking her picture. Her long blond extensions are pulled up in a bun and she wears a full-length dress with a slit down the cleavage to reveal that perfect skin covers her entire body, not just her face. She holds a stack of papers with an acting book facing outward. Though it's nighttime, she wears sunglasses.

It all happens in less than five seconds. I take three shots, then my camera jams, so with my own eyes I watch Paris climb into the Escalade while Aaron lights her up. There's no denying, she's spectacular.

* * *

A few hours later, Brian, Donna, Aaron, and I all ride together to the Christmas party. We enter a low-lit Venice Beach bar and see that the festivities have begun without us. J.R. immediately comes over to offer congratulations on the Paris set, sloshing his drink all over my top as he talks. His hands keep “falling” from my lower back to my
bum
, so I continually swerve to avoid their touch. Donna, all tatted up and down, looks like a '60s hippie in a flouncy rose dress and super high heels. Brian, with his full-sleeve tattoos and muscular build, very obviously
fancies
her and is stuck to her like glue.

Aaron leads me through the party, introducing me to everyone. Brian is a Kiwi, a New Zealander, but most everyone else is British—about ten “snappers,” as photographers are called in the United Kingdom, and the half dozen office staff. I meet Simon, a Brit from a small village in Essex who will later become my closest pap confidant and partner. He has an appealing, weathered face and is about forty. I like him immediately. Simon's wearing a wife-beater T-shirt, jeans, and a Lakers hat, and when I ask him why he shaves his arms, he says, “Keep me whole body clean, mate. Shave all me hair.” Interesting.

The night passes quickly and festively, no one missing out on free drinks.
And like every British or Commonwealth company I've ever worked with both in the United States and abroad, it appears perfectly acceptable to drink, party, and perform naked lap dances with your coworkers—and come Monday, expect no repercussions. All is forgiven, forgotten, or laughed about, and often repeated the next weekend.

At two when the bars close, J.R. is unable to stand and his staff carries him to a cab. Then Aaron and me, and Brian and Donna (holding hands at this point) drive back to Aaron's Hollywood apartment. We scramble eggs, open two cans of baked beans, and make tea. Sometime after four, Aaron wraps me in one of his bear hugs, and we fall asleep on the floor.

3
. For the record, red carpet photographers are considered press and not paparazzi.

With a stack of phone numbers from the company Christmas party, pestering my new coworkers for advice is a cinch. Even though the other CXN snappers are much more competitive than Aaron, they don't seem threatened by women and certainly not by my questions.

Below, a few tips, though putting them into practice remains another matter:

1.   It is often advantageous to establish fleeting eye contact with the celebrity. That way, he or she will know you are not a threat. Then
ka-boom
, pick up your camera and shoot. If, however, you are not careful with your eye contact and instead
eye-fuck
them (as we say), you will be busted: “PAP” is tattooed on your forehead.

2.   If busted, don't
then
try to hide. This seems obvious, but truly it is not. You
always
feel like you want to hide. Once they know you're there, give them some space and wait for the shot. Often they'll
give it up
anyway.

3.   Try to shoot from your car. Your car is your best hiding place. (Although this point is arguable in my case—no pap in L.A. drives a tint-free blue station wagon like mine.) Another technique you can try from your car is to honk your horn in an attempt to get the celeb to look up. “Don't holler their name,
though,” advises Vince, a Brit who rarely leaves his car. “Then they'll know you're a pap. Just honk, or holler some random word.” (“Fire”?)

4.   Make 'em laugh. If you can do this, Aaron says, you're golden. No bad energy, everyone goes home happy, and most importantly you get a smiling shot, which is what the tabloids want. I find this last point odd.
Don't the mags want ugly, embarrassing, and scandalous?
That seems to be what's often in there. “Nope,” advises Aaron. “Ultimately, they don't like to tarnish their stars. They're all in bed together.”

5.   Don't “get greedy,” as Simon calls it, with your shots. This is a HUGE mistake for new paps because we don't yet know when we've nailed it. When you get greedy, you get into trouble. “Get the shot, and get out,” says Simon. (Though “trouble,” it seems, isn't usually
big
trouble. Just inconvenient and embarrassing.)

* * *

Six weeks into my new career, I'm ready for a big break. Having answered a casting call for extras, I am on the movie set of
The Invasion,
starring Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig. Nicole's “good money” and “hard to get,” and because I've done extra work before and know extras are usually in close proximity to the cast, I cautiously conjecture,
Have I found the secret to success? Why don't other paps do this?

I have been hired for a two-day shoot and am on the set by seven each morning. To be clear, extra work is horrible. Besides an early start, you have no idea what time you'll get off, so you can't make plans for the evening. Then, your entire day involves sitting around with the other extras in a “holding area,” like you're a herd of cows. For a ten-plus-hour day (at minimum wage), you spend approximately one hour on set. There, you will be required to move your lips and make appropriate hand gestures but not utter a word. No one keeps track of you while you're in the holding area, which is why I think maybe I'll be able to sneak away and shoot.

At around noontime on the second day, Daniel is off set, milling around. It takes me more than an hour to work up the courage to approach him.

“Hi, Daniel. Would you mind if I took your picture?” My small point-and-shoot camera is in my hand, not hidden, but not aimed at him either.

He shakes his head and appears disgusted that I've even dared to ask. I feel horribly gauche, but truly, Daniel doesn't know I'm anything more than a presumptuous fan. (In retrospect, I find his reaction arrogant.)

That evening, all the extras don evening attire and are called to the set. I am one of about a hundred in a dining room scene. Nicole is brought in last and is conveniently seated at the table adjacent to mine. I am now holding my camera, which I smuggled in in my beaded clutch, underneath my white dinner napkin. My finger is on the shutter. With the camera on Automatic/Flash Off, I attempt shots of Nicole via the make-a-hole-in-your-napkin-and-shoot-through-it trick. When the scene is over, I run to the bathroom in the studio warehouse and check my shots. I have fifteen of napkin blur.

No other opportunity presents itself. By eleven that night, I've more or less given up and am off set waiting for wrap. Suddenly, Nicole's husband, country music singer Keith Urban, walks up and embraces her. At the moment, rumors are circulating about problems in their new marriage and his need for rehab. Right now, Keith and Nicole are
big
. Mind you, I have no idea what “big” means in terms of money (same as I don't know what “good money” and “hard to get” mean), but that's what J.R. told me. I know I must try again.

Like a robber contemplating a holdup, I lurk. No one watching would mistake me for a professional paparazzi, however. My hands shake and I'm scared like a rat in a snake's cage. The feeling of adrenaline-overload sickens my gut and my over consumption of “craft services,” the term used for gastronomic catering on film sets, moves upward from my stomach. Keith keeps looking my way, so I know they notice me.

I take shots, this time with the camera-hidden-in-a-scarf-hole trick. I take a lot of shots. And then some more. I don't stop to look at my
pictures but think I must be getting something good. Keith and Nicole are holding pretty still, and I'm barely ten feet away.

Keith is attractive, but it's Nicole's beauty that's overwhelming. It would be hard not to stare at her even if I weren't taking pictures. She's at least five-foot-ten, but her limbs are narrow and long, and she looks highly breakable. Until she saw Keith, Nicole had not smiled in two days, and I wondered if she was sad. It's no secret Nicole is desperate for kids. She may be rich, famous, and exquisite, but she's still pushing forty and has the same biological clock tick-tick-ticking as the rest of us.
⁴

I continue shooting. The two chat and embrace and are affectionate together. More shots. Still more. You can see where this is going. My mind starts to swirl, it blurs, and with gusto I completely disregard Pap Tip No. 5: Don't get greedy.

Oh, but I do get greedy. Very,
very
greedy. Why, I ask myself later, couldn't I have stopped after twenty shots?

Suddenly, the flash goes off.

Time stops. I am in a dim, quiet tunnel, and my catered dinner lying heavy in my stomach moves closer to my mouth. The feeling is not unlike stubbing one's toe—
nailing
one's toe—and waiting those few seconds before the pain crawls up to tell the head, “
Mother
—
r
, that hurt!”

I'm frozen with my head curled down when Keith grabs my arm. I don't look up, but I imagine his face leaves no question about his thoughts. In front of twenty-five extras and a production crew with whom I've been fairly friendly for two days now, he yells, “Let me see that. What are you doing?”

Keith knows full well what I'm doing.

“What are you taking pictures of? Huh? Huh?”