Chasing Britney leads to evolution of paparazzi

At just after 1 p.m. on a recent weekday, two men recline in one of five SUVs parked on a shoulder west of Spears’ home (more vehicles are to the east). Electronica blasts from its open windows. The passenger, thin with bags under his eyes, says they’d been on the job for 20 hours.

“We can’t really talk,” he muttered. “We’re too tired.”

When they do talk, nearly all use “chirp” functions on cell phones that allow instant communication. During the down periods, there’s friendly chat: The TMZ guy calls the Hollywood.tv guy to find out the latest rumors, for example.

But when a chase is on, competitive juices flow, and information flows solely inside agencies.

Sandro, a Brazilian photographer for X17 who refused to give his last name, sat in his black two-door Ford on Mulholland when two SUVs on either side of him suddenly made U-turns and sped off.

He sat mystified for about 20 seconds, then got a chirp — “Laurel Canyon” — and zipped off after them.

A cop following a Spears paparazzi chase simply wouldn’t know where to begin. Sandro zipped past two cars in the middle of a narrow Mulholland intersection. Later, a green SUV with a massive dent on the passenger side passed several cars on the crowded two-lane road.

Kevork Djansezian / AP Sheeraz Hasan, founder and CEO of Hollywood.TV, left, edits a video clip of Britney Spears in his office in Beverly Hills, Calif., on March 25.

When they hit Melrose, where Spears’ black Cadillac Escalade made a left hand turn, 10 cars in the Brit Pack ran a red light en masse. Honks and yells came from angry rush hour drivers that paparazzi refer to as “civilians.”

“The chases are ridiculously dangerous,” Hollywood.tv paparazzo Craig Williams acknowledged. His boss purchased a Volkswagen Beetle for use on the job. Others drive rented SUVs or leased BMWs with free maintenance, handy because the downhill racing necessitates constant brake work.

“Sometimes we do have to take a yellow or red (light), but you know, to me it looks like a centipede,” said Sergio Huapaya, the 34-year-old co-owner of JFX Direct. He said his car is heavily damaged from chase accidents.

Camera memory cards and mini-DV tapes are dropped off with runners immediately after any Spears sighting, to be processed at agency offices.

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“Speed is everything,” Hasan of Hollywood.tv said. At his office, tapes are edited, then distributed in a matter of hours to Web sites and major media outlets ranging from YouTube to “Entertainment Tonight” to, yes, The Associated Press.

Outlets are free to run the footage free of charge in exchange for including the Hollywood.tv logo. Funded by 22 investors from LA, London, India and Dubai, the 33-year-old entrepreneur pays his paparazzi at least $7,000 a month, and is known to make secret payments to rival agency photographers in exchange for Spears information.

He’s burning through money, but said he hopes the Hollywood.tv brand will soon become so valuable he can sell it off for “over a billion.”

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