PAPARAZZI

0

Never mind the fallout over marauding paparazzi L.A.’s celebrity photo business is a profitable cottage industry that feeds off the town’s Hollywood culture and no amount of hand-wringing over Princess Diana is likely to change that.

“It will have no affect at all,” said Sherrie Mazingo, chairman of USC’s broadcast journalism department. “There is a market for publications that publish these kinds of photos. One incident will not change the business significantly. The bottom line is dollars and cents.”

The Aug. 31 death of the Princess of Wales and her suitor Dodi Fayed during a high-speed game of cat-and-mouse with photos cast a spotlight on European paparazzi.

But Hollywood is the real home of high-stakes celebrity chasing.

With so many stars living and working in the entertainment industry here, dozens of photographers make a good living trolling the nightclubs and the exclusive hillside neighborhoods for candid shots of celebrities.

Two photographers rented the house next to Madonna’s gated mansion in the Hollywood Hills to get a long-lense glimpse of the singer-actress and her newborn baby. Others rent helicopters or even boats to get images of a celebrity wedding closed to the press.

The rewards for exclusivity can be great, as editors of tabloid newspapers and syndicated entertainment TV shows bid for fresh images to titillate their audiences.

One video paparazzi earned as much as $250,000 in one year selling his wares to the syndicated tabloid show, “Hard Copy.” And photographer Francine Brandt, who works with her husband Peter, slipped into the production of “The Nutty Professor” and made $50,000 for worldwide video and stills of a bloated Eddie Murphy.

“Many people snubbed or looked down their noses at the paparazzi until they saw the potential to make money,” said Kip Rano, a Hollywood paparazzo who runs the American Photo Syndicate. “That’s when their morals were quick to change.”

Rano, for example, said he once made $100,000 for a shot of Prince and Kim Basinger having a dinner at a restaurant here.

But not every photograph is forbidden, and in fact many Hollywood photographers take umbrage at being called “paparazzi.”

“They have been throwing around that word pretty loosely,” said Jim Smeal, who runs the Hollywood office of photographer Ron Galella, who gained notoriety for his pursuit of the late Jacqueline Onassis. “Everybody is being lumped into that bunch in Paris.”

Indeed, there is something of a caste system in Hollywood. At the top are the “court photographers,” about a half-dozen trusted photojournalists such as Alan Berliner and Peter Borsari, who shoot the private parties, weddings and bar mitzvahs of celebrities.

Photographers say these shooters can earn $1,000 to $2,000 a day from their clients. Some keep their negatives and sell them to select publications. Others turn all their material over to their employers.

In any case, these photographers practice discretion so as not to jeopardize their special relationships with the stars.

“I had certain photographs of O.J. Simpson with two or three women and I could have made $20,000,” said Borsari, who specializes in private parties and events. “But I didn’t.”

Next in the pecking order come “event photographers.” These are usually freelancers, but typically they have a relationship with an agency, like Arcadia-based Celebrity Photo, which buys their work and gives them assignments.

“We write letters, we get credentials,” said Scott Downie, who runs Celebrity Photo and employs seven regular photographers here. “Event photographers are not paparazzi.”

Photographers say there are about four dozen “regulars” in Hollywood who are credentialed or invited by the entertainment industry to cover events like the Oscars, the Golden Globes or a charity gala in Beverly Hills.

These are the photographers typically seen at movie premieres with their flashing strobe lights. They say they have to scramble for their paychecks because there are no guarantees of a sale.

Syndicated television tabloid shows like “Inside Edition” and “Hard Copy” pay about $250 for a typical photo of a celebrity, said one TV source. Supermarket tabloids like the National Enquirer and The Star, according to photographers, pay about $125 for a celebrity shot at a premiere or other public event.

A cover photo can earn as little as $750, down from the $1,400 that was routinely paid several years ago, according to one photographer.

“Event photos are very difficult to sell,” said Laura Luongo, a Hollywood freelance event photographer whose photos have appeared in Time, Newsweek, Vogue and In-Style magazines.

Luongo says she tries to get specific assignments, instead of hanging out with the pack at movie premieres and trying to sell the same photos as everyone else.

“There are hundreds of photos submitted from an event,” she said. “I don’t like to work on spec, anymore.”

Getting assignments is the fruit of “years of hard work,” she said. “It’s a little of, they call me, or I call them.”

But the big money, the so-called million dollar shot like the image of Princess Di and her suitor Dodi El-Fayed, kissing in Italy shortly before their deaths usually goes to the hard core paparazzi or stalkers who stake out the stars and shadow their every move.

The key is exclusivity the one photograph or video that no one else has, which is why competition can reach fistfight levels among photographers.

“The big cash comes from the forbidden picture,” Luongo said. “It’s a nasty business. They hide behind bushes, they have mosquitos and ants crawling all over them. They live on tent food and in their cars. That is not photography. I think it is a testosterone thing. Women don’t do this. This is not a female thing.”

To get the edge on the competition, many paparazzi pay a network of tipsters.

“They get tipped by maitre d’s, doormen, bellboys, even publicists who betray their clients or who are working on their client’s behest ,” said Gary Morgan of Santa Monica-based Splash News.

Splash is an independent photo and news service specializing in celebrity journalism that is run by Morgan and his partner Kevin Smith, two British newsmen.

Hollywood publicists, Morgan said, have a love-hate relationship with the media. When they’re promoting a movie, they want publicity. When they’re conducting an illicit affair, they don’t.

Not surprisingly, most “stalkerazzi,” as this rogue group is often called, now carry both video and still cameras. The exact payday for these gonzo operatives is usually a closely guarded secret, but the figure rises depending on the heat a photograph or videotape can generate among buyers.

Ron Davis, a freelancer who happened onto River Phoenix while he lay dying on the Sunset Strip, said he could have earned $250,000 if he had taken the chilling shot of the young actor’s final moments. He refused and was scorned by colleagues. Davis quit Hollywood and now runs a newsstand in Nashville, Tenn. where he refuses to sell tabloids.

“I don’t regret choosing not to photograph River Phoenix,” David told NBC’s “Today” show. “It is something that I could not live with to this day. I would be very surprised if it doesn’t haunt the photographers that did what they did to Princess Diana from now until the day they die.”

Some observers think Princess Diana’s death could result in a backlash against the paparazzi. That would not be unprecedented.

Once the TV tabloid shows would routinely pay between $5,000 and $10,000 for stalker video or photos, but the going rate dropped after “ER’s” George Clooney called for a boycott of Paramount Pictures’ “Hard Copy” last year because of the antics of aggressive photographers.

“Hard Copy” and its competitors like “Inside Edition” and “American Journal” say they no longer will buy questionable video or photographs obtained illegally or by harassment.

“It’s tougher,” Morgan said. “You get smaller and smaller access to a smaller number of celebrities. There are more restrictions.”

But USC’s Sherrrie Mazingo scoffs at the notion of down-and-out paparazzi who must operate at discount prices. “Even at greatly reduced fees, the (the stalkers) will earn a very healthy living,” she said. “The buyers aren’t going to reduce the prices of their (publications) As long as there is a market, there is always going to be people pursuing people. It’s very lucretive at every end of it.”

And indeed, new opportunities are opening up.

Fed up with life on the streets as a paparazzo, Rano says he now sells his images from a celebrity catalogue available on the Internet at American-Photo.com.

Depending on the size of the photo, Rano charges between $1 and $5 for an image. Most of the photos were shot by him, but others were purchased from photographers he once competed against. Payment is made by major credit card.

“If you are doing a story about Diana and you need a photo, you can come to us,” he said. “We have 50 photos of her and they are of all good quality.”

Rano admitted that business on the Internet isn’t a smash, as yet.

“It’s slow,” he said. “People are scared of giving you their credit card numbers.”

No posts to display