If Motion Pictures Were Common by the 1860s?

hey, all. one thing i've been batting around for my ASB ATL is that the general technological POD is during the French Revolution and starting with photography, of all things. that's a little beside the point of this thread, though.

basically, assuming that non-sound motion pictures are developed and become widely known and used by news agencies by the 1860s, what does everyone think the social effects of this would be? one that i've heard before (or came up with myself, i can't remember which one it is) is potential repercussions it could have on campaigns waged by the US military against Native Amercians if film of battles, casualties, and massacres is recorded in full motion and seen by the populace.
 
I think that would still strongly depends on the kind of technology you have. I'm assuming about WWI-level of slow-exposure hand-cranked cameras, which would most likely give you a powerful propaganda tool, but not yet a reliable record of events. With both sides pre-war having vocal partisans, I assume the biggest question at the beginning is whether the industry is distributed equitably. If it's mostly an artisanal thing, depending perhaps on high-tech imports from Europe, you could see motion pictures from both sides in the run-up to the war. The abolitionists have the more compelling story to tell, but much will depend on who tells it better. With an industry concentration in the north (New York, most likely), you'd have a crushing weight of quantity going against the south. It might lead to a distrust of motion pictures on principle (they're all northern).

Of course, you would also have local authorities policing 'decency', so a lot of northern propaganda would never be shown in the deep south. But movie versions of Uncle Tom's Cabin or the lives of Sojourner Truth and Frederick Douglass might have an impact in the border states. It's hard to make the Southron case in film without the redemption narrative. I'm not sure movies of a slave insurerction would pass 'decency', no matter how much of a cautionary tale they were. These things are a two-edged sword, even illiterate blacks could watch a movie easily enough. John Brown, of course, would become the bogeyman of hundreds of cheap productions.

With the war on, both sides are likely to produce films that heap opprobrium on the other, discrediting moving images further as pure propaganda. THere's going to be films of Southern 'gentlemen' abducting free blacks at gunpoint, ravaging the countryside, chasing fugitives with bloodhounds and massacring prisoners, and movies of leering Yankee invaders pursuing Southern belles, irresponsily freeing savage blacks to stalk Southern womanhood, destroy homes and farms, and generally offend any sense of honour. Later on, you'd get images of the Shenandoah Valley, Andersonville and Fort Pillow, of bushwhackers' victims, looting and raping coloured infantry and pillaging rebel horse. THis would be strictly for consumption on your own side, and with the blockade in place, I suspect the northern narrative would export more successfully. AS to authenticity, assume everything is staged until you have proof to the contrary.

The biggest opportunity for changing history as we know it (assuming the war basically still happens as per OTL) will be in the northern elections. The peace democrats will certainly use reels of the horrors of war extensively.

THe later Western campaigns are unklikely to produce much controversy. Only one side holds the tools of producing mioving pictures, and even those who generally did not support slaughtering Indians considered them savages in need of imüprovement. You'd see lurtid reenactments of heroic stands by cavalry against the warriors of picturesquely named chuefs and bucolic scenes of hapopy INdians on reservations, gratefully accepting government largesses from their agent.
 
(being less than informed on the period) i had hoped that maybe a showing of massacres performed by US soldiers would make the wars in those areas end sooner, mainly for the potentially interesting POD of a greater general Amerindian population in the US, as well as the ramifications on the military and what they do after this
 
You would bump back not only photochemistry but chemical science in a greater sense, to produce the film (cellulose nitrate, cellulose acetate, etc.). No doubt, you would see impact on explosives and other aspects of technology.
 
bump back as in it would be less advanced than OTL by 1900, or more? (the way you worded it is kinda confusing)
 

Dialga

Banned
Would the influx of Northern-produced ACW film ITTL be helpful or harmful to the Lost Cause myth? My gut suggests the latter.
 
If even the USA have motion pictures in 1860, I am sure movies exist of the Indian Rebellion, perhaps the Crimean War, and surely Solferino in 1859.
 
The magic latern is already present and they were the 'motion pictures' of their day in regards that they had special effects and motion slides that were frequently used. Maybe more theater fires until the development of the light bulb one would have flammable film in very close proximity to heat source.
 
Youd have to advance a whole horde of technologies to make this work.

As someone pointed out, if theyve got the nitrocellulose fore the film, youve got it for smokeless powder, which would have HUGE effects on the Civil War, especially since its probable that the Union has it and not the CSA. One year war?

Also, the kind of tech and gearing to get the film to roll smoothly past the lens at ~30 fps, and, even worse, open and close the shutter repeatably, would have HUGE impact elsewhere. It probably makes machineguns possible for instance.

Could cameras even take film with a 1/30s exposure? I dont think so.
 
Youd have to advance a whole horde of technologies to make this work.

As someone pointed out, if theyve got the nitrocellulose fore the film, youve got it for smokeless powder, which would have HUGE effects on the Civil War, especially since its probable that the Union has it and not the CSA. One year war?

Also, the kind of tech and gearing to get the film to roll smoothly past the lens at ~30 fps, and, even worse, open and close the shutter repeatably, would have HUGE impact elsewhere. It probably makes machineguns possible for instance.

Could cameras even take film with a 1/30s exposure? I dont think so.
and i'm perfectly okay with it having an impact on other technology ;) if you recall, in the very first post of this thread, i said that earlier advancement of photography is just the initial POD for a whole bunch of changes to technology ITTL ;)
 
hoping to bring back discussion on this: the video linked below is fake, but this is about the quality i'm envisioning for motion pictures by the 1860s. while i HAVE seen motion picture clips from the early 20th century, i haven't seen enough to really put it into perspective, so maybe someone more knowledgeable on the matter could identify roughly what OTL period this is like?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAiG1ml3itk
 
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