I strongly disagree with much of your analysis of this flick (this and others were novelties, not even 'art' or 'photography' but experiments, though early cinema was a novelty for many purposes. Even one large purpose was showing these new moving pictures over seas to enchant men from other countries to come work in the US , leaving their families behind, with the promise that they'd make enough wealth to move their entire extended family here. Early moving pictures, like this one, had many motivations, but until , for instance, Melies, very few were associated with art.)

I also strongly advise against a podcast because film is visual. I wouldn't even advise merely a youtube video series but an interactive media series: videos linking to essays linking to websites linking to stills linking to excerpts from other books. And even then, the market for this is extremely limited as demonstrated immediately in this subreddit, where so far the oldest movie seems to have been made in the mid 90s. You wouldn't recoup your investment, and because you're entering an academic field where both your biggest fans and critics will know nearly as much as you do if not more, you'd have to present deep insights that only assiduous academic research will offer. There simply isn't a market for Nolan fans to be interested in the true history of cinema. Godard made his own beautiful history of cinema , there are other documentaries on it , nobody cares. There is the popular which will recoup your investment , and the art aspect , which will challenge your investment and your knowledge. Can you imagine putting so much work into something only to have a bunch of academics , your primary and essentially only audience , come to tell you you're wrong?

This is the same reason a civilian can't make a history of , for instance , classical music : there are already courses available online from Harvard or Stanford or Berkeley. Can you compete with a professor? A professor that's already published monographs on the subject?

If you want anyone to listen, you'd already be an academic , involved in the dialogue. Without being an academic , you're immediately fodder for academic and a true irrelevant bore for the masses.

I may be wrong and stupid here , though , and I'd appreciate hearing your perspective.