About
131 Analogue was built on a personal archive before it became a business. That matters.
My mother documented everything. She was the kind of parent who made a point of capturing every birthday, every vacation, every ordinary Tuesday that turned out to matter. Preserving those photos and videos mattered to her deeply. Her children were her purpose, and that collection was her record of a life well spent.
For years, that record sat in boxes and on tapes, degrading quietly. The idea that it could be lost to a fire, a flood, or simple physical decay was one of her greatest anxieties. Getting her archive properly digitized, organized, and into the hands of the whole family gave her something I didn't expect: peace.
That experience, preserving thousands of photos and hours of video from her collection before I ever took on a client, is where the workflow was built, the equipment was tested, and the standard was set. It's also where I understood what this work actually is. It's not scanning. It's making sure a person's contribution to the world doesn't disappear.
"This is the work I wanted done for my own family. That's the standard I hold every project to."John Stromme, Founder, 131 Analogue
The Background
Before 131 Analogue, I spent 15 years in entertainment marketing, working with major studios including Warner Bros, Sony Pictures, Disney, and Lionsgate, producing creative marketing content under the strictest security protocols. That environment teaches you something specific about handling precious material: you build protocols, you follow them without exception, and you never cut corners, because the cost of a mistake is too high.
Part of that work meant managing strict content security compliance for film projects. It left me with a deep understanding of how much protecting your private material matters, long before the first family archive ever came through the door.
Those habits are the foundation of the air-gapped workflow, the chain of custody protocols, and the personal quality review that every 131 Analogue project goes through. They weren't designed for family archives, but it turns out they're exactly what family archives deserve.
131 Analogue operates under 131 & CO LLC, based in South Pasadena, California, and serves clients throughout greater Los Angeles.
John Stromme, Founder · Connect on LinkedIn
Most people know they should do something about the box of tapes in the closet. The question is whether they find someone they trust to do it right. That's what the first conversation is for.
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