Russell is currently Adjunct Professor of Film, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. Partner in Vanguard Films, trustee of Community Media Trust, Wellington, NZ.

Previously he worked as compiler/editor of textbooks Photographic Theory for the Motion Picture Cameraman and Practical Motion Picture Photography for LFS (1970). He is the author of Cinema Strikes Back: Radical Filmmaking in the United States, 1930-1942 (1982), Marked Women: Prostitutes and Prostitution in the Cinema (2006), Observations: Studies in New Zealand Documentary (2011) and was editor of journals Backtrack (1968, at LFS), The Velvet Light Trap (1971-73) and Illusions (1987-90).