Chasing Britney leads to evolution of paparazzi

As Hollywood.tv has come to dominate video coverage with its business model, X17 dominates photo coverage of Spears with sheer numbers. Run by Francois and Brandy Navarre, it consists of dozens of street-smart former valets or waiters, many from Brazil.

Rivals say X17 is responsible over the last four years for making old-school undercover paparazzi — using stakeouts and long zoom lenses — largely irrelevant. It’s a rare moment nowadays that Spears doesn’t know she’s being photographed. Instead, X17 and other new-school shooters swarm and shove to get the best shots.

This L.A. story merges with another one: immigration.

“There’s a lot of illegals out there, and X17 has a lot of them,” said Morgan of Splash. Francois Navarre has said that many paparazzi are in the process of becoming legal immigrants.

“It used to be all white guys,” Cousart said. “Now it’s like ‘We Are The World’ out there.”

Kevork Djansezian / AP Paparazzi Craig Williams, of Hollywood.TV, is seen through the side mirror of his car during a stake-out near Britney Spears' house in Los Angeles on March 16.

Veteran paparazzi like Frank Griffin, who runs the Bauer-Griffin agency, complain that the new LA shooters know nothing about their cameras or subjects.

“I call them knuckle-scraping mouth breathers,” Griffin said. “They can either make $1,500 a month running around with cameras, or they can go rob a 7-Eleven.”

“We see them as the scourge of the problem,” Cousart said in one breath, before acknowledging in the next that his guys join in the scrum: “We’ve got to play or we’re going to starve.”

They won’t — so long as there’s interest in the pictures they provide.

‘Leave her alone’
Spears is shopping with her mother at the Miss Sixty jeans store at the corner of Melrose and Crescent Heights. Twenty-six paparazzi line up against store windows, pointing cameras inside from every possible angle.

Catcalls come from passing vehicles: “Get a life!” and “Leave her the (expletive) alone, you idiots!”

But also, over and over again, there’s the question — the one that stems from the same curiosity keeping glossy celebrity magazines alive: “Who’s in there?”

One photographer responds: “Who do you think?”

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