Government Video Production Perth: How Councils and Agencies Actually Commission Video
Most of the government comms officers I speak to start the same way: they have a project worth filming, a budget that came from somewhere specific, and a vague dread that commissioning it will mean six weeks of procurement paperwork.
Usually it does not.
But the things that do trip these projects up are rarely the ones people worry about in advance. Here is what actually matters when a WA council, department or agency commissions video.
1. You Probably Do Not Need a Full Tender
This is the misconception that stalls the most projects. WA government purchasing works in tiers: smaller engagements are made on direct quotes from a handful of suppliers, mid-sized work goes to a written request for quote, and only larger contracts require an open tender through Tenders WA. The dollar figures move, so check the current WA Procurement Rules rather than trusting a number you remember from two years ago.
What this means in practice is that the majority of video projects - a campaign piece, a community update, a recruitment film, a series of short social clips - sit comfortably in the direct quote range. You can approach two or three videographers, compare what they propose, and engage the one that fits. No open tender, no ten working day advertising period.
If you have been holding off on a project because you assumed it needed to go to market formally, it is worth checking where it actually lands.
2. Ask for the Compliance Pack Up Front
Government engagements have a paperwork layer that private sector work does not, and the time to discover a supplier cannot meet it is not the week before the shoot.
What you should be asking for: current public liability insurance at the level your organisation requires, professional indemnity if your procurement team asks for it, an ABN, and a White Card if any filming happens on a construction or works site. For drone work, a CASA RePL is the baseline - a hobby drone licence does not cover commercial filming, and footage shot without the right licence creates a liability your organisation inherits.
One that gets missed constantly: if the shoot involves children - a school, a library program, a community event, a youth service - your videographer needs a current Working With Children Check. Ask for the card number, not a reassurance.
3. Accessibility Is a Requirement, Not a Finishing Touch
Any video published on a government website needs to meet accessibility standards. Captions are required at WCAG Level A, and audio description sits at Level AA, which is the level most Australian government digital content is expected to meet.
The practical problem is that accessibility is usually remembered after the edit is signed off, at which point it becomes a separate cost and a separate delay. Build it into the brief instead.
Ask for captions as a deliverable, ask whether audio description is needed for the platform you are publishing on, and ask for a transcript while you are at it - it is cheap to produce at that stage and it helps your SEO as a side effect.
A videographer who works with government regularly will raise this before you do. If they look blank when you mention WCAG, that tells you something about how much government work they have actually done.
4. Sort Consent Before the Camera Comes Out
Community filming puts you in front of people who did not plan to be on camera that day. Residents at a public event, families at a council facility, staff who happen to walk through frame.
Signed release forms for anyone identifiable, clear signage at public shoots, and a plan for how you handle someone who says no. For anyone under eighteen, that means parental consent, not just the young person's agreement. This is not only a legal exposure question - a community consultation video that upsets the community it filmed has failed at the thing it was made for.
The other half of this is data. Ask where the footage is stored, who can access it, whether it leaves Australia, and how long the supplier keeps it after delivery. Some agencies have explicit requirements here, and it is far easier to agree at the quoting stage than to retrofit.
5. Ask Who Owns the Footage - Including the Rushes
This is the single most valuable question in the room, and it is the one that gets skipped most often.
There is a real difference between owning the finished video, holding a licence to use it, and owning the entire rushes library. Many suppliers deliver the final file and retain everything else. That is a legitimate way to work, but it means that in two years, when you want a thirty-second cut for a different campaign, you are commissioning a new job rather than re-editing footage you already paid for.
For government work I would push for the full library. Public money paid for that day of filming, and a council that accumulates its own footage archive over five years has an asset that gets more useful every year. Get the position written into the quote, whichever way it lands.
6. Plan for Several Outputs, Not One Video
The budget approval was probably attached to one specific deliverable. The shoot itself can produce far more than that.
The same day of filming that gives you a three-minute project video can also give you vertical cuts for social, stills for the annual report, and short clips for internal comms - but only if that is planned before the shoot rather than requested after it. Interview setups, coverage and framing all change depending on where the footage is going.
Map the full list at the briefing stage. It costs almost nothing to add outputs to a shoot that is already happening, and a great deal to come back for them later.
Working With Me
I am a Perth-based freelance videographer and photographer with over fifteen years of production experience, and I hold a current White Card and CASA RePL drone licence. My government and public sector work includes projects for the Department of Fire and Emergency Services, the City of Stirling, the City of Swan and the University of Western Australia, and I am represented by RMK Crew Australia.
If you have a project you have been putting off because the procurement side looked complicated, get in touch - I am happy to talk through where it is likely to sit and what a realistic scope looks like before you take it to your manager. Government Video Production Perth
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