The X Factor 2013

It would have been a rig set up. Too risky to use a helicamera in a room like that. Basically a big fixed in place Jimmy jib which would allow forward and backwards movment as well as up and down and turning possibly 360.

Like a Technocrane you mean? The distance it traveled looked far too far for that. Also I'd have thought the wires of a "spidercam" would have got in the way, as it went very low, and was surrounded at one point by performers on the stage.

I need to find the bit on the ITV player thing where it's in shot!

Edit: Can't be bothered. Can't remember if I saw it on Saturday or Sunday and it makes you watch all the ad breaks! Life's too short. Anyway if you watch Sunday's episode you can see a shot from it fairly early on in the group number.

Greg Scott has a picture on his Facebook profile of the Spidercam being in use last year - the picture suggests it can go quite low.

I was at Wembley on Sunday and the camera was on wires and did go for most of the length of the stadium to get those shots.

Ah ok, thanks for the info guys. It looked great.

I still can't quite picture in my mind how it works in only 2 dimensions though! Has anyone got a direct link to this Facebook picture?

The individual shots with the spidercam, etc were great, but it all felt a bit disjointed and lacked fluidity. SVT nails it every year with Melodifestivalen. There is constant movement rather than cutting from a moving spidercam shot to a static camera shot.

This is the shot I was talking about is here.

This image may give a better idea of how it works: