When a Nation lets us film on its territory, we leave with hard drives full of things that belong to them. Interviews with Elders. Language. Footage of places that matter. Stories families have carried for generations. Holding that material is a responsibility, and we treat it that way.
OCAP® is our starting point
We follow the First Nations principles of OCAP®: Ownership, Control, Access, and Possession. In plain terms, a Nation's information belongs to the Nation. The Nation decides how it's used, who sees it, and where it lives. Where a Nation has its own data governance rules, those come first.
Where your footage lives
Raw footage stays on hardware we own, here in Canada. Our primary storage is in our studio in Port Alberni, with a mirrored backup held by our editor. It isn't stored on overseas servers, and it isn't uploaded to platforms that claim rights over what's posted.
Some project files and review cuts pass through cloud services during editing and approval. We keep raw interviews off those services wherever we can, and we tell you up front which ones we use on your project.
What we won't do with it
We won't sell, license, or share footage of a Nation's people, ceremonies, or culturally sensitive places without that Nation's permission. That includes our stock footage library. Material from Indigenous projects stays out of it unless the Nation says otherwise.
We won't upload interviews to AI services that train on what they're given. Sensitive recordings are transcribed on our own systems.
Getting your footage
We shoot in professional camera formats. The files are very large and hard to open without editing software. If you'd like your footage, there are two ways we can get it to you.
The first is a copy you can actually use. We can convert interviews and selected footage into standard video files that play on any computer and are small enough to send online. This is available to any Nation we work with, and to anyone we've interviewed for our independent films. Just ask.
The second is the full raw archive. We'll copy it onto a hard drive and ship it to you at no charge for our time or shipping. You can keep the drive at cost, or send it back once you've moved the files to your own storage. Files this large can also be sent online, but transfer services often store them on servers outside Canada. If you'd prefer that route, we'll tell you where the files will pass through before we send anything.
When the project ends
At the end of a project, the Nation decides what happens to our copies. We can keep an archive, delete our copies once yours are delivered, or something in between. If you don't have time to decide right away, we keep everything safe until you do. You can change your mind later, and if you ask for your material years from now, we'll get it to you.
The same care for everyone
Most of this policy is written with Nations in mind, but anyone who appears in our work gets the same basic respect. We collect only the personal information we need, keep signed releases secure, and handle all of it under BC's privacy law. If you've been in one of our films and want to know what we hold about you, ask.
Questions
Contact Ben Hazel at hello@salmonberrystudios.com. We review this policy every year, alongside our policies on working with Indigenous Peoples and AI.
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