Vance grew up in Sydney, Australia, and at a young age began working in theater and concert lighting, becoming a Lighting Designer and working with many Australian acts, including Cold Chisel and INXS. He worked on the Swing world tour in 1984, including a US tour. The day before flying back to Australia, he got a call from the Go-Go’s to work on their US tour as their LD. He ended up staying in the US and continued to work in the concert world.

He began designing lighting rigs for concert music videos for artists including Janet Jackson, Tesla, Great White, and many more. This led him to cinematography. As a cinematographer, he has shoot hudreds of music videos, commercials, and feature films. Due to his experience and understanding of the touring concert world and working with the touring crew, it was a natural progression to shoot multi-camera concert films. Firstly, on film and now on digital cinema cameras for such artists as Alice Cooper, The Cult, Great White, Guns N ‘ Roses, Pearl Jam, John Mayer, U2, The Eagles, and many more. His understanding of working with the touring crew and deep knowledge of concert lighting have been invaluable in shooting these projects.