With a background in directing for the stage, John has also had plenty of experience performing on live television. As a 14-year-old he appeared as a contestant on legendary Australian show Young Talent Time (that brought us the likes of Dannii Minogue and Tina Arena). It's this history that allows him to aid the Idols despite time restraints.

On Fridays John meets with the contestants for their first performance workshops.

"We basically spend half an hour with each contestant with their song, which is not a great deal of time," John explains. "So we just quickly look at how they would like to present themselves with it physically; which involves stuff like the staging of it, where they're standing on stage and whether they choose to walk around. If there's too much movement you want to pull it back bit or do we need more physicality from them?"

On the Sunday, before the show, each performer has three camera rehearsals to work out where they'll be on stage.

"In the minute of so after each camera rehearsal we talk about camera direction and see if they're still on track for how they want it to come across," says John. "In that short amount of time it's really about making them feel comfortable and letting them still be themselves."

As for ironing out any little performance quirks, such as hand and eye movements, it can be a long process, and John believes it harder for the Idols to get away with these than other performers.

"Established artists aren't under the microscope so much as far as performing habits," he says. "But because we see them week in, week out, people notice, ‘oh, he moves his hand a lot'. So they're under a lot more pressure, I think, in the competition. There's also a fine line working out whether something is distracting or setting them apart from everybody else."

Perhaps the biggest job for John is choreographing the Verdict Night group performances, but this year, he says, the contestants have been a breeze.

"They're surprisingly good at that," he says. "Since the Final 12, I was panicked at the first rehearsal because I was concerned about people remembering where to stand, because that's new to a lot of people.

"We get a two hour block on the Friday to run through it and we brush it up on Monday before camera rehearsals, but really they haven't thought about it since Friday because they've had their own performances to think about."

"I've been shocked with them, there hasn't really been one member in the group that has let the group down and can't remember where to stand."

No matter where they place in the competition, the skills John is honing with the Idols are intended to be with them throughout their performing careers.

"No doubt a lot of them will want to perform in entertainment centres," he says, "and you have to perform a lot bigger that you normally would. It's very different to performing with a band in a pub."

He adds, "I think you can really see how they've progressed through the weeks. At the end of the day, I've done my job when it looks like I haven't done anything at all."