Vancouver Paparazzi
As more film sets migrate to Vancouver, Hollywood North paparazzi cash in on celebrities.
Down a rural, single-lane road in the outskirts of Port Coquitlam, a ramshackle red house appears unremarkable at first glance. But Christine Kilpatrick knows better. The little bungalow is the humble abode of Jacob, the native American teenage werewolf played by Taylor Lautner in the blockbuster film series Twilight.
A veritable expert of Hollywood North film sets, Kilpatrick makes a living shuttling tourists around major movie and television series locations. Jacob’s home – where filming is taking place this month – is just one of a number of hot spots she has painstakingly staked out since opening On Location Tours Vancouver in June 2009.
In addition to the approximately 30,000 actors, set builders, hairdressers, caterers and others employed by B.C.’s film industry, an increasing number of people are making a living feeding the world’s fixation on celebrity by supplying candid photos, set tours and articles for global media.
Actors are Kilpatrick’s bread and butter. When not giving tours (they cost $169 for adults and $119 for kids), she writes freelance articles for Us Weekly and sells the odd photo to interested buyers, including print magazine editors and television producers.
“I think I have the edge on this type of business because of how involved I am and am actively seeking out locations,” she says. “I feel like I’m always working.”
Also pounding the pavement are the local paparazzi. “It’s exactly like hunting,” says Justin King, 29, who works for photo agency Flynet, a round-the-clock job snapping celebrities in candid shots as they go about their daily business. “You go out there, you obviously want to shoot something. You can hunt something for hours, days or even minutes.”
While King is paid a basic “comfortable” salary and takes a cut on sales, most paps work on a freelance basis, with agencies taking 30 to 40 per cent of the profits. For example, one photo might sell for $100 to 10 publications around the world, leaving the photographer with around $600.
King says his biggest success to date was shooting Renee Zellweger and Bradley Cooper out for the first time as a couple. It was supposed to be on the cover of People magazine, he laments, but Patrick Swayze died that week and stole the limelight. His biggest payday to date was a $5,000 cheque for snapping Suri Cruise (Tom and Katie’s four-year-old daughter) at Holt Renfrew earlier this year.
While there are about a half-dozen people who snap celebs for cash here in Vancouver, the paparazzi population has been known to double, even triple, when Twilight stars are in town, and the influx can highlight some cultural differences. U.S. paparazzi are used to “much more aggressive stuff,” says King: “Twilight’s the only time I’ve seen people jump on top of cars just to shoot through glass at night.” Locals tend to be a little more civilized than their American counterparts, King says, and “A-listers enjoy that.”
Nevertheless, it does take a “certain stomach for the job,” according to another local paparazzo, who does not want to be named. “We work 16-hour days, work in the rain. You’re not liked by a lot of people,” he says. “We make people upset. You are polite, but sometimes you just have to get that photo.”
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