The Green Giant Company records contain one of the largest collections of audiovisual advertising material at the Minnesota History Center. Over two hundred barely-identified 16mm optical sound film reels initially resided at the Historical Society in LeSueur County, MN – the original location of the Green Giant offices. These were transferred to their current home in 2017 and their cultural value was immediately evident, with the vast majority in good enough condition to digitize.

While the History Center has staff and equipment for smaller-scale AV projects, a partnership was established with Saving Tape to clean and digitize this immense historic treasure trove. Approximately 65,000 linear feet of 16mm optical sound film was repaired, hand cleaned and scanned using a sprocket-less, high definition, progressive-frame film scanner. The optical sound track was harvested using state-of-the-art AEO-Light optical audio scanning software. Finally, the visual and audio files were synced in Adobe Premiere Pro and exported as archival quality H.264 movie files.

Following the completion of the project, Minnesota Historical Society Archivist Joseph Larson offered the following comments:

“MHC was absolutely thrilled with the result, and the films are now preserved in cold storage while their digital counterparts are identified and accessible to the general public through the Gale Family Library.”