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Covering Britney's Court Madness
For over 10 years now I've managed to dodge a bullet. In all my time in television, I've never had to cover a court case. Once as an intern at a local news station they made me go sit inside some hearing. I have no recollection of what it was for but I remember how bored I was during it. I knew I didn't want to be a local news reporter. I wanted to be an entertainment reporter. So, court for me was something I thought I would never deal with.
Little did I know that in entertainment news we would wind up covering court cases anyway -- Winona Ryder, Courtney Love, Anna Nicole Smith, Pamela Anderson, Paris Hilton and the countless others who find themselves in court in front of cameras capturing their every move. I've always managed to stay away from those stories, by choice (and a little bit of whining and complaining that I didn't want to do it).
Until today.
I was asked to go down and cover it for our first test of live streaming technology from a breaking news event. Team Web at Access Hollywood has been amazing to me, and for that reason, I just could not say, "No."
The funny thing is, I kind of enjoyed it. It has its downfalls, for sure, like the endless downtime between activity but what a rush of adrenaline you get when the chaos happens. I sort of got thrown into the fire when we determined that on our live stream we should have some commentary. Then MSNBC called and wanted me to do some live shots. So, I was right in the middle of Cirque de Britney.
The entire mass of media waiting out here for Britney could have gotten a whole lot of nothing had she smartly chose to go in a secret entrance (like Kevin Federline) or like countless other celebs who have come to court – why didn't she hire a car service to drop her off already?! Instead she gave us exactly what we were looking for -- Chaos.
At first it was pretty slow, not much going on… just camera folks and producer types milling about waiting for something to happen. Then it was like a switch turned on. Britney had shown up at a side entrance but was sent away and she seemed unsure of where to enter. Paparazzi actually damaged her car and another car in the crush of it all. All of a sudden, like a swarm of bees, photographers, producers, reporters and cameras came running towards us headed to Brit's next stop, an underground parking garage entrance.
The vultures swarmed around her for a good seven or eight minutes as she sat in the driveway talking to a female sheriff's deputy. Then, finally after what seemed like an hour, she backed up and was off (running a red light mind you) with photogs chasing her on one side while others ran back the way they came to the side entrance.
She drives back to the side entrance loading dock and finally goes inside. There is a little more craziness as photogs try to see if they can get shots of Kevin. It's revealed he has gone in an underground entrance and cameras go down as the press goes back to their blackberries, cell phones and for some, cigarettes.
An hour later, it's back to the side entrance to wait for Brit's inevitable exit. Nearly an hour and a half of waiting around and she finally leaves. The photogs part like the Red Sea.
Her car drives out of the loading dock and sheriffs try with all their might to block the swarming media. Brit pulls her car out as cameras flash furiously and she nearly misses hitting the car of her friend, Sam Lufti, who is driving a Mercedes too.
This is when the whole thing really got surreal for me. Is this really happening?! Are there really people standing in the middle of the street as cars are driving by. It's a miracle no one was injured seriously though… I'm sure that bumps and bruises did occur.
Then the moment comes when Brit leaves us all in shock -- when she literally peels away, speeding off like a bat out of hell. Photogs chase after her and she finally is gone from sight and the insanity finally ends.
Can't wait for her mugshot.