[1] McAlpine was a physical education teacher in Parkes, New South Wales, Australia.
[2] In 1962 he resigned from his teaching job and joined ABC Television as a camera assistant, and was promoted to cameraman in 1965.
[3] McAlpine filmed many of Beresford's early films, including The Adventures of Barry McKenzie,[5] Barry McKenzie Holds His Own, Don's Party, The Getting of Wisdom, Money Movers, Breaker Morant and The Club.
[citation needed] Paul Mazursky offered McAlpine work on the film Tempest, released in 1982, and after that, his career took off.
[7] In 2016 McAlpine received an honorary doctorate in arts from Edith Cowan University in Perth, Western Australia.