Orson Welles is known for being a great movie director and for being the creative mind behind “Citizen Kane”, a film many people consider to be the greatest achievement in cinema. While this is a topic that is up to debate – even Orson claimed that the ending was a bit of a cliché taken from a B-shelf book, there is a no doubt that the director was a true visionary.
In 1955, Orson did a series of 15 minutes shows for the BBC, where he picked one or more subjects and talked about them in a monologue in front of the camera. The show was called “Orson Welles Sketchbook”, as Welles used to draw sketches of the stories he was telling in order to make the show more dynamic.
“Orson Welles Sketchbook” was the first vlog. It was a personal account of personal stories and of stories seen or heard and of opinions on various topics, all condensed into a simple man-and-camera format, each episode lasting for just about 15 minutes. In the world of the 1950s, this was quite the novelty and goes to show the genius of Orson Welles who foresaw what could be done through the then new medium of television.
In his talks, Orson discussed in his captivating way stories of diverse topics, such as theater audiences in Dublin, how Houdini did a trick at the Kremlin or shared his own stories and thoughts. Probably one of the most powerful videos is the one in which he talks about how everyday peaceful policing is a great issue that blocks and disturbs a peaceful citizen’s daily life. All the small checks, controls and rules made Orson feel that the people of the time were treated like “delinquent children” and that this had to be stopped. He also shared a personal anecdote of how he was once asked to open his suitcase during a border control and told the customs officers that he had a small atom bomb in it that would go off if he did so and that he was planning on doing it at the Scala because he didn’t like their shows. Of course, the story turned into a gag he later regretted.
In contemporary vlogging style, Orson also shared some thoughts on “The War of the Worlds” and how he managed to do something really amazing with that broadcast, namely to get audiences to question what they heard on the radio, and he was encouraging people to question the magic of the new medium, television, itself. Fakes and illusions were one of Orson’s favorite themes, his 1973 film “F for Fake” being the exact expression of that.
The Sketchbook, even though it had only a few episodes, went down well, and a few months later Welles started doing a series of ITV travelogues recorded throughout Europe. With them, Welles brought a new type of “televisual” grammar to the screen. In 1979, he even did a pilot for a talk-show format TV show, which didn’t actually air (it is available on YouTube though), which captured a lot of Orson’s storyteller persona.
While Orson Wells did not manage to change television, he did actually work the medium in a way that was unique to him and that set the grounds for many other creatives to challenge the norms and do new and exciting productions without the fear that they would break the rules of the day.
A master of an art is not only someone who can convey messages through the mean(s) of expression, but also someone who can use the medium itself in an original and creative way in order to transmit his messages and Orson Welles was definitely someone who made a name for himself for being a master of radio, film and television.