Compelling Video Shows How the Fotoplayer Added Music and Sounds to Silent Films
Back in the day, silent films weren't limited to accompanying music. Thanks to a very clever instrument known as the photoplayer or fotoplayer, pictures got diegetic sounds such as thunder, bird chirps, doorbells, and gunshots, as well as a whole orchestra-worth of musical instruments. These instruments appeared in 1912, falling out of fashion with the arrival of “talkies” in the late 1920s.