Started his career as a newscaster in Hong Kong. Upon his return to Britain, he directed television documentaries for the BBC. He won an Emmy for his outstanding work on the miniseries The Search for the Nile (1971), which he filmed in an almost semi-documentary style.
Was a student of novelist E.M. Forster whilst at Kings College, Cambridge.
He has directed one film that has been selected for the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant: Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi (1983).