In the silent movie era there were musical instruments specially created for accompanying films and creating sound effects as well as music. One was the American Fotoplayer, seen below as played by Joe Rinaudo, who owns one of only about a dozen that are still playable. There’s a short article about it on Rinaudo’s website.
Link: http://youtu.be/S5nHjCWl_Xg
The interviewer, Huell Howser, was best known as host of a public television travel show produced at KCET in Los Angeles. He died January 7, 2013.
There’s a whole series of videos with Joe Rinaudo demonstrating the Fotoplayer at this link: http://www.youtube.com/user/cues80335/videos
And here is Mr Rinaudo talking about the instrument: http://youtu.be/EaApFqN_lXs
Updated 2020 June 19 to correct a broken video link.
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