Camera Operator (Film, Television or Video) (ANZSCO 399512)

On the Short-term Skilled Occupation List

From the official Home Affairs skilled occupation lists, as at 2026-08-12. Lists change at each government update — always confirm on the official page before acting.

Which lists is Camera Operator (Film, Television or Video) on?

STSOL — Short-term Skilled Occupation List. Occupations on the STSOL can access state-nominated and regional skilled visas (190/491), but not the Skilled Independent 189.

Visas this occupation can access

Being on a list makes the occupation nominatable for these visas — each visa still has its own requirements (points, age, English, a positive skills assessment, and for sponsored visas a willing employer or state).

Processing priority

Camera Operator (Film, Television or Video) isn't in any of the ANZSCO groups that Directions 121 and 122 list for the priority sectors. Some of the first group is defined by the job rather than the code: a nominated position directly involved in agriculture, aquaculture or fishing, one that directly supports mining, oil and gas or coal production, or one related to defence. Otherwise the application is processed after the priority sectors. For the permanent and provisional skilled visas, applicants who were in Australia when they applied come next, then those who applied from outside Australia. For the 482, Specialist Skills stream applications come before both.

Priority changes the order in which lodged applications are looked at, not whether they are granted. Who is invited to apply through SkillSelect is decided separately. See all 202 occupations in the priority sectors.

Skills assessment

A positive skills assessment for Camera Operator (Film, Television or Video) comes from:

What the assessment actually involves

Camera Operator (Film, Television or Video) sits on the Short-term Skilled Occupation List, with Focus Puller (Film) as its named specialisation, in the Performing Arts Technicians unit group at Skill Level 3. ANZSCO describes it as setting up and operating cameras to photograph scenes for film, television or video productions. TRA runs no dedicated page for the occupation; assessment defaults to the standard document-based Migration Skills Assessment, requiring a formal qualification and verifiable, documented pay evidence for every claimed period of paid employment — the same evidence rules that apply across every TRA-assessed trade in this family.

Where these applications come unstuck

The defining trap is assuming Short-term Skilled Occupation List membership opens an employer-sponsorship route — it does not for this code, since Camera Operator carries no Core Skills Occupation List entry at all, so no 482 or 186 pathway exists regardless of an employer's willingness to sponsor. A real 2014 britishexpats poster asking this exact code's forum how much work experience TRA would count got a telling reply: bare employment dates cannot show which of that work was actually skilled, close to what TRA's own evidence rules demand — specific, verifiable, documented periods, not a general career history.

An honest read on this pathway

Camera Operator reaches subclass 190, 407, 491 and 494 — a genuinely useful spread including the working-holiday and post-study routes — but no employer-sponsored 186 or 482 under any circumstance, and no points-tested 189 either, since it carries no strategic-list membership. This is one of only two codes in the family with real, dated forum discussion of the assessment itself, giving it more grounded applicant experience than most of its media-family neighbours, even though the specific advice found in that 2014 thread was appropriately cautious rather than concrete.

Going through Trades Recognition Australia? TRA pathways lean heavily on documented work history and evidence of on-the-job experience. The Employment History Builder reconstructs it with gap detection, so the record you submit holds together.

Talk it through with a registered agent

Whether nominating Camera Operator (Film, Television or Video) is your best route depends on your points, experience evidence and timing — exactly what a MARA-registered agent works through in an initial consultation. Describe your situation once through Migratio and compare real consultation quotes from registered agents, free.

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