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RE: To help the cultural sector, historians should make films
Every time I see a short history video that I'm in, like this recently produced one on Benjamin Franklin and Joseph Breintnall, I feel grateful that the word is being spread in a mode that is both accessible and interesting. But I also see a lot of room for what might be called improvement. So, yes, a solution is to become a video producer or to work with one. The university has capacity to teach all of the needed skills, but the schools and departments are in their silos.
How to fix that?
I definitely don't have a solution for "de-siloing" the university, but I also want to pose another question. If we don't provide filmmaking training for public historians, why does the field term documentarians as part of our community? Do we actually see them as historians or associate them with ahistorical entertainment? Entertaining history ((or pop history as you term it)) expands and engages audience--the main tenets of public history work. Once again, the professional history world decides who is "in" based upon their usage of traditional mediums.
And the unfortunate irony is that Temple University produces public historians in one school and documentary producers in another! So whose fault is the persistence of that disconnect?