After studying film and photography at the San Francisco Art Institute, Lance moved to New York to assist photographer/filmmaker Bruce Weber. He began his career as a cinematographer shooting music videos and commercials with close friend and collaborator Spike Jonze. Lance quickly became one of the industry's most sought after cinematographers and shot seminal music videos for directors Michel Gondry, Mark Romanek, Stéphane Sednaoui, and Dayton Faris. In 2001 he won the MTV Music Award for Best Cinematography for Fatboy Slim's Weapon of Choice.

Lance's feature Cinematography debut was Vincent Gallo's cult classic Buffalo 66. His long list of credits include Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation (BAFTA nomination for Best Cinematography), Marie Antoinette as well as Spike Jonze's Being John Malkovich, Adaptation and Where the Wild Things Are.

In the late 90's Lance began his transition into directing and in 1998, together with his business partner Jackie Kelman Bisbee, founded the production company Park Pictures. Over the years, he has received 35 Cannes Lions for his work with clients such as Nike, Apple, HP, VW, P&G, Subaru and more. He was nominated Best Commercial Director by the DGA in 2003, 2011, 2012, and 2017. In 2011, Lance's Super Bowl spot for Volkswagen, The Force, became the undisputed highlight of the year's Super Bowl broadcast. The Force was named the best ad of 2011 by AdWeek, Creativity, and YouTube, and consistently ranks on lists of the greatest Super Bowl ads of all time.

His Apple film "Misunderstood" won the 2014 Emmy Award for Outstanding Commercial. In 2019 Lance won his second Emmy Award for Nike "Dream Crazy," starring Colin Kaepernick.