Doral, FL Filming & Production: Student Filming (2026)

Sec. 8-136 sets the city's baseline rule that no one may film on a publicly owned site, facility or right-of-way without a permit from the city manager or a designee. Subsection (b) then lists three specific exceptions to that permit requirement, and the third covers students: 'Students and faculty filming exclusively for educational purposes' need no city permit at all. The other two exceptions cover individuals filming or videotaping only for their own personal or family use, and employees of print or electronic news media covering ongoing news events, though that news exception does not reach staged simulations or re-enactments that a news outlet orchestrates.

The student and faculty exemption turns on purpose, not on who is filming: the footage has to be exclusively educational. A student or professor shooting a documentary, commercial or narrative short for a class project intended for commercial release, festival submission, or broader public distribution beyond coursework falls back under the general permit requirement in Sec. 8-136(a) because it is no longer exclusively educational. Because Sec. 8-135 defines 'film' broadly to include still, live or motion picture production on film, electronic tape or any other electronic device, the educational exemption covers a wide range of formats, from a smartphone class assignment to a university television production crew, as long as the educational purpose stays the sole use of the footage.