[2] In 1970, a documentary he shot in grad school got him admitted to the American Film Institute, then in its second year of taking in fellows in Hollywood.
Carver's final AFI project was a short film based on Edgar Allan Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart starring Alex Cord and Sam Jaffe.
[5] The Los Angeles Times described it as "an effective mood piece, a beautiful work in ominous life and shadow".
"[2] The Tell-Tale Heart was widely screened and attracted the attention of Roger Corman who had made a number of adaptations of Poe's works.
[2][8] Corman was pleased with The Arena and gave Carver another directing job, a gangster film starring Angie Dickinson, Big Bad Mama (1974).
Paul Bartel, who directed second unit on the film, described Carver as "very well organised" and "having great control of the medium".
Corman used Carver on another gangster film he made over at 20th Century Fox, Capone (1975), starring Ben Gazzara and John Cassavetes.
"[9] Carver was going to make a film for Ray Stark with Susan Blakely, Freestyle, about a hotdog skier at the end of her career.
[11] Instead Carver directed Steel with Lee Majors, then made another for Roger Corman, Fast Charlie... the Moonbeam Rider (1979), starring David Carradine.
The development of Walker, Texas Ranger led to a lawsuit filed by Carver and his production partner Yoram Ben-Ami, which they lost.