Government and Public Sector Video Production | San Francisco Bay Area
Luma Creative produces video for public agencies, special districts and civic organizations across the San Francisco Bay Area, Santa Cruz and the Central Coast. That work includes public information campaigns, explainer video for ballot measures and infrastructure programs, recovery and construction documentation, PSAs, and interview-led films for boards and commissions.
Public sector clients
- Scotts Valley Water District: Interview and b-roll explainer on local water supply.
- Salinas Valley Basin GSA: Program documentation for groundwater sustainability.
- California State Parks: Seacliff State Beach storm recovery documentation.
- Pajaro Valley Shelter Services: Interview-led film for a housing services organization.
I worked with Will and his team to produce a very last minute video for a fundraising event. Not only was the end product well put together, but Will was very responsive and understood our sense of urgency. He made it happen without taking away quality of the production. Great work!
Development team, Family Supportive Housing — Google review
Selected work
What is public sector video production?
Public sector video production is video made for a government agency, special district, or publicly funded program, where the audience is residents rather than customers and the goal is usually to explain, inform, or document rather than to sell. It differs from commercial work in four practical ways: the approval chain runs through staff and often a board, the language has to be plain enough for a general public audience, the finished video frequently has to meet accessibility requirements, and the footage may become part of the public record.
What this sector usually needs
Explainer video for programs and ballot measures
When an agency needs residents to understand a rate change, a groundwater plan, or an infrastructure program, an explainer does the work a mailer cannot. These are typically interview-led with animation over the technical sections, because the subject matter is genuinely complicated and a talking head alone will lose the viewer.
Recovery and construction documentation
Storm recovery, capital projects and emergency response all need a visual record, both for the public and for reporting. This work is scheduled around conditions rather than convenience, and it usually means returning to the same location across months.
Public service announcements
PSAs carry a single message to a broad audience, often with a fixed runtime and a distribution channel already decided. The constraint is compression: one idea, delivered clearly, in thirty or sixty seconds.
Board, commission and public meeting coverage
Multi-camera coverage and live streaming for meetings that have to be publicly accessible, with clean audio being the requirement that matters most, since these recordings are watched for their content rather than their look.
Accessibility and public records
Video published by a public agency generally needs to meet accessibility standards, which in practice means accurate captions rather than auto-generated ones, and often a described or plain-language version. Agencies should confirm their own obligations with counsel, as requirements vary by agency type and funding source. We deliver caption files alongside the finished video as standard, and can produce alternate-language versions where a service area requires them.
Campaign and advocacy work
We also produce interview-led and b-roll based video for political campaigns and advocacy organizations. That work is handled separately from agency work, and we do not discuss campaign clients publicly.
What civic and nonprofit clients say
Verbatim from Luma Creative’s Google reviews, which average 5.0 across 101 reviews.
We are small non-profit that needed a video with heart to motivate donors to give. I searched far and wide (across the bay area) and it was hard to find any shop that had a portfolio of non-profit work. Luma Creative is a rare find and they had several pieces of non-profit work with rich storytelling and heart. We hired them…
Tracy Young
I work for a nonprofit and had the pleasure of hiring Luma Creative to help us film and edit a success story about one of our program participants. From onboarding to the final delivery, Will and his team were an absolute joy to work with. During the storyboarding process, the Luma team listened carefully to our goals and…
Nam Le
Our organization, Pajaro Valley Shelter Services, worked with William and his team at Luma Creative on a video used as the centerpiece of our annual fundraising campaign. The video was inspiring, heartfelt, professional and effective! William and his team were a delight to work with. We had a tight timetable for production…
Mike Johnson
We’ve had the pleasure of working with several production companies over the years, and Luma Creative consistently stands out as the best. We’ve collaborated with them on a few projects at my non-profit, and every time, they’ve been incredibly friendly, attentive, and professional. If you’re looking for a top-tier video…
Brian Phan
Luma Creative is a top notch vendor. As the board member responsible for our nonprofit’s media assets, I’ve found their team to be both visionary and incredibly easy to collaborate with. We are looking to establish a long term partnership to capture the heart of our mission in a way that truly resonates with our stakeholders.
Sid Tao
Working with Luma Creative
We are based in San Francisco and work across the Bay Area, Santa Cruz County and the Central Coast, which is where most of our public sector work has been. Crew, equipment and post-production are all in-house, so a small agency job does not get sub-contracted to strangers. If your agency procures through an RFP process, we can respond to one.
Frequently asked questions
Usually yes, with the agency’s permission and inside whatever access rules the building has. Public meeting rooms, lobbies and public-facing areas are generally straightforward. Secure areas, staff-only spaces and anywhere members of the public appear on camera need to be agreed in advance with the agency.
Ownership is set by the contract, and we agree it before the shoot rather than after. The rule people have usually read about applies to material produced by federal agencies; it does not automatically apply to a California city, county or special district. If your agency needs the raw footage as a public record, say so up front and it is written into the deliverables.
It is planned around the room and the agenda rather than around the crew. Fixed positions, clean audio off the existing sound system where there is one, and a cut that is usable as a record rather than as a promotional film.
Other industries we produce for
- Technology and SaaS
- Healthcare and life sciences
- Financial services and fintech
- Mobility and automotive
- Restaurants, food and beverage
- Education
- Nonprofit and community
See all of them on the industries hub.