Teenage Paparazzo

Many of you will know Adrian Grenier as an actor from the brilliant TV series 'Entourage'. What you may not know is that he is a director as well. This is a documentary he made about a phenomenon he has accidentally gotten himself caught up in due to his work.

I have always been fascinated by paparazzo. How these guys go to extraordinary lengths to get just right picture of a celebrity. How magazines 'make up' their stories to go with these pictures. How the public then believe these stories and make the magazines popular and thus keep the paparazzo in business. Hopefully the first film I write for Hollywood will be a comedy about this world. Personally, while I do read the magazines when they are sitting around, I do not go out and buy them. And I only read them because they can be one of the best sources of comedy in the way they are written. I do not like to judge actors by their private life but the work they do.

I found this documentary fascinating on many levels. From the way the paparazzo get their pictures to the director himself. Adrian has made an excellent and well researched look at one of the downsides to the business he works in. His focus is on a 13 year-old kid, Austin Visschedyk, who has a job as a paparazzo. There is also the interesting aspect of a kid doing a potentially dangerous job like this. I think watching this you will question his mother's parenting abilities when she lets her young son spend all hours of the night stalking celebrities. Our whole obsession with celebrity is interesting and Adrian has done a good job of making us understand it. It all comes down to the tall poppy syndrome and our joy in seeing a celebrity at their worst. I'm sure magazine editors will back this theory up with sales figures. It would have been interesting to see how the film turned out if Adrian did not star in it. It is like that science theory about the fact that if you are studying something it can affect the behavior of the thing your studying. Once the paparazzo know Adrian is doing the movie about Austin you begin to think if they change their behavior because they do not want to come off in a poor light. Especially considering that their industry has been blamed for the death of Princess Di. At one stage Austin does feel threatened by all the attention he is getting. But then he does become a bit of a celebrity himself.

I would like to encourage everyone to see this film if you can. It not only proves Adrian Grenier is not just a pretty face but also shows how our obsession with celebrity can affect people.