Scenes From The Red Carpet ... TIFF 2009

It's not often in life that your wife calls to ask when you'll be home for dinner and you can honestly tell her you'll be there ... 'As soon as I'm finished shooting Penelope Cruz'.



Scenes from the red carpet at the Toronto International Film Festival. L-R George Clooney, Penelope Cruz, Ewen McGregor, and Jennifer Connelly (with a body hand-made by God) in a drop-dead stunning red dress that unfortunately had to be mostly cropped out here (she made the front page of every newspaper in town yesterday) The power of the little red dress!



If you think Penelope looks just a wee bit put-off, you should have seen the barrage of flashes that went off when she took her place in front of the photo pit.



We're talking 50 plus photographers shooting more or less continuously at 8 fps. (because you never know how long they're going to stand there) all using flash from about ten ft. away.



I've done quite a few of these things but I've never seen anything like that. After a minute she looked completely stunned.



It's a bit tedious after a while, working the red carpet stuff. You have to get to the gala location three hours in advance to get a good spot, then wait around, sometimes standing the whole time, for what feels like forever, all so you can shoot one frenzied minute.



There is a strict Chinese wall between the photo and video areas, which is unfortunate. I like shooting the actors when they are being interviewed. They are often more animated and interesting when they are in front of a video camera. But it's not allowed here.



The first couple nights as soon as the big name stars were gone everyone packed up and rushed off to the next one, leaving the carpet deserted for late arrivals and lesser stars.



Now they have a rule that you have to stay until all of the talent has arrived at that location. Yesterday at George Clooney's film we all got held up for 40 minutes waiting for Michael Moore to show up - and he's not even in it! He just wanted to see the film.



Makes it hard to get to a lot of these things in a single day.

George Clooney was great with the crowds, walking all around the perimeter of the red carpet, talking, signing autographs and posing for pictures with fans. This was the gala for The Men Who Stare At Goats.

Ewen McGregor (below) was also very into the crowd interaction, making his way most of the way around the red carpet area.

Jennifer Connelly with her husband, and co-star, Paul Bettany at the gala for the premiere of Darwin, held at Roy Thomson Hall.

TIFF used a previous photo of mine for the front cover of one of the Festival Guides.One of my other shots is double page inside.

Photos done with the Olympus E30's w/ Digital Zuiko 35-100mm f2, 12-60mm 2.8, 50 -200mm 2.8 lenses and FL50 flashes.

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