Before you film on Country, ask two questions: whose Country is this, and who can say yes? The answers take time to find, and they shape everything else about the shoot.
In 2025 we filmed in Karijini National Park for Wirraka Maya Health Service's recruitment films. Below is how permission worked there, what the rules ask of a crew, and the steps we take before any shoot on Country.
Karijini National Park, 2025. Filmed with the support of the Traditional Owners. Photo: Ripple Narratives
Whose Country, and who can say yes
Many places belong to more than one group. Karijini takes in Banjima, Yinhawangka and Wintawari Guruma Country, and each has its own corporation that speaks for its Traditional Owners. Where native title has been determined, that body is usually a registered native title body corporate, often called a PBC. Elsewhere it may be a land council, a heritage body or a group of Elders.
A map is a starting point, never the answer. The AIATSIS Map of Indigenous Australia shows the broad picture, and nativetitle.org.au lists the native title corporations. Then pick up the phone and start a yarn.
What it took in Karijini
Before Parks and Wildlife WA issued our commercial filming licence, we asked all three Traditional Owner corporations: Banjima Native Title Aboriginal Corporation, Yinhawangka Aboriginal Corporation and Wintawari Guruma Aboriginal Corporation. We told them who we were, who the films were for, what we wanted to show and roughly where.
The answers came back over three weeks. One corporation agreed and named no areas to avoid. Another supported the project and asked us to share the broad filming areas, so it could flag any culturally sensitive places before we arrived. The third gave its approval through the Parks and Wildlife office in the Pilbara. Only then did the licence go through. We filmed in the park on a single day in May.
None of it was hard. It just could not have been done in a week. If we had booked travel first and asked second, the shoot would have moved.
3
Traditional Owner corporations asked before the licence.
3 weeks
For the approvals to come back.
1
Parks and Wildlife commercial filming licence.
Dales Gorge and a gorge slope, Karijini National Park, 2025. Photos: Ripple Narratives
What the rules ask of a crew
In Western Australia, commercial filming in a national park needs lawful authority from Parks and Wildlife, and proposals are due at least four weeks before filming. Its conditions say Aboriginal cultural content can be included only with the knowledge and consent of the relevant Traditional Owners. Parks that are jointly managed with an Aboriginal corporation take longer, because the joint management body is consulted. Recording on land covered by the Aboriginal Heritage Regulations also needs approval from the Department of Planning, Lands and Heritage.
Separately, WA's Aboriginal Heritage Act 1972 makes it an offence to damage or alter an Aboriginal site, which matters when a crew is moving gear or rigging lights. Other states run their own systems. In the Northern Territory, the Aboriginal Areas Protection Authority issues certificates for work near sacred sites.
The law sets the minimum. The standard we work to is the Traditional Owners' say, given early, on what is filmed and how it is shown.
Some places are not for the camera
Some sites are restricted to men or to women, some hold burials, and some are only spoken about by the people with the authority to do so. Being able to walk somewhere doesn't make it right to record it. If a place is described to you as sensitive, it stays out of frame, and so does anything that would help someone else find it.
Communities set these limits too. When we filmed interviews in Jigalong for Pilbara Community Legal Service, most of the community was open to us. The lore and ceremony grounds were not. Only people who have been through lore and ceremony may enter them, so they were strictly out of bounds for the crew and the camera.
The same goes for footage you already have. If a Traditional Owner group asks for a shot to come out, take it out.
Karijini National Park, 2025. Photo: Ripple Narratives
Before you film on Country
There is no single set of rules to follow. Lore and customs differ from one community to the next and change over time, and so do the needs of each person within a community. What works is yarning: sitting down, talking it through and listening until you understand what this community, and the people in it, need from the work. These are the steps we take to start that early.
Find out whose Country it is, and which body speaks for the Traditional Owners. There may be more than one.
Make contact before you book anything. Our Karijini approvals took three weeks. Allow at least a month.
Yarn with them about who you are, who the work is for, what you want to film and roughly where. Ask which places to avoid, and keep the conversation going through the shoot.
Apply for the land manager's permit once you have the Traditional Owners' support, and tell the land manager you have it.
Keep a record of every approval, and share the finished work with the people who gave it.
When we walk on Country, we walk on stories. The camera follows the lead of the people whose Country it is.
Talk to us
If you're planning a shoot on Country and want to talk it through, email hello@ripplenarratives.com or call Luke Gemmill on 0401 214 812. Our guide to commissioning a First Nations-owned production covers the rest of the brief, and the Wirraka Maya case study shows the films this process made possible.