For All the World To See: Spidercam Added to US Open World Feed
By Brandon Costa, Associate Editor
In just its second year shooting US Open tennis action from high above Arthur Ashe Stadium, Spidercam has taken off its training wheels and expanded globally.
Spidercam swoops in the capture a post-match interview with Serena Williams.
The four-point dedicated aerial camera system — which was an exclusive to ESPN in 2010 — has been added to the USOptimum world feed, giving its operating team more exposure and a new level of creative freedom.
“This year is a bit better with us on the world feed,” says Spidercam camera operator Thomas Meckel. “We don’t have to take care of making sure we’re [not] in the world feed’s picture, because, when we fly down, they take us as well and we’re not in their shot.”
While it is not allowed to move during play, Spidercam provides eye-popping visuals as it swoops in on cables to virtually any point within the stadium. Think SkyCam (made popular through NFL broadcasts) but with more mobility to move not just forward and backward but also left and right and all points in between.
“[We were] cutting around Spidercam [last year] for sure,” says Brian Williams, coordinating producer of USOptimum. “It’s an active camera, especially on walk-ons and when there’s sit-downs on changeovers. So, yeah, we were cutting around Spidercam quite a bit. This year, we take it, and it’s been great on Ashe.”
Pilot Felix Werremeier flys Spidercam around Arthur Ashe Stadium. Werremeier is part of a three-man crew that brings Spidercam to air for ESPN and USOptimum.
The Spidercam system is anchored in the four corners of the top of the stadium. At each point, a motorized winch passes Kevlar cables through a pulley attached to one of the stadium’s light poles. The cables — two of which are fiber, two of which are not — is capable of lifting 1.2 tons. The fiber cables facilitate communication between the physical system and Spidercam’s X-Y-Z coordinates software.
Pilot Felix Werremeier, Meckel, and rigger Stian Nilsen run the camera out of a dedicated control room at the top of Arthur Ashe. There, Werremeier inputs the coordinates, Meckel handles the pan-and-tilt functions, and Nilsen oversees the setup and general operation. A computer monitor shows where the winches meet, and the computer controls which winch turns which direction. The computer also takes directions from the pilot’s joysticks in a joint effort between the pilot and camera operator.
For such a complex operation, Spidercam was relatively simple for its team to strike in the face of Tropical Storm Irene. The initial setup to fix the pulley system to the light fixtures can take nearly a day, but it’s sturdy enough that it did not need to be taken down prior to the USTA’s required departure at 3 p.m. on Aug. 27. The crew simply needed to reel back all the wires to their respective winches.
“[We brought back the wires] just for safety reasons,” says Meckel. “We were afraid of having the long line hanging all over the place when it’s too shaky. But it only took us about an hour to set it back up on Monday [Aug. 29].”
Spidercam, which weighs approximately 72½ pounds, broadcasts all over Europe — primarily at soccer games — and is equipped with an internal heater to help it remain active in extreme weather.