In 1967, Phillips worked in the City of Edmonton's Parks and Recreation Department as Area Recreation Director. From 1968 to 1971 Phillips worked freelance in radio, film and television. This work included writing, recording and editing public affairs and cultural documentaries from Canadian and International (Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Ceylon) locations, primarily for CBC Regional and Network Radio and television. At this time he was also Editor of the monthly pulp publication "The Canada Goose", and produced multimedia programs for Edmonton rock musicians in performance. In 1971 he began working for Filmwest Associates Ltd. in Edmonton as Principle and Executive Producer. In 1978, Phillips was commissioned by the National Film Board (NFB) Montreal to manage production of Going the Distance, the official film of the Commonwealth Games held in Edmonton, which was nominated for an Academy Award. He started working for the NFB full-time until 1995 when he took early retirement from the NFB and formed his own film company, Black Spring Pictures Inc.

From 1966 to 1968, Phillips was a Member of Board of Directors of Edmonton Allied Arts Council, Member of Board of Directors of Edmonton Film Society, Member of Board of Directors of Edmonton Social Planning Council and Chair of its Program Committee. Phillips was the Founding Director of Alberta Motion Picture Industries Association from 1972 to 1973 and was the Founding Director of Gallery Cinema and its successor, Cinematheque 16, Edmonton's first repertory cinema which was housed at the Edmonton Art Gallery. Phillips was writer and Editor from 1977 to 1982 for NeWest Review, a monthly review of populist art, writing and politics and a writer for White Pelican, a quarterly review of the Arts. He served as Chair of the Canadian Film and Television Association Festival 1975, which took place in Edmonton. He was President of Alberta Motion Picture Industries Association from 1998 to 1999 and the Private Sector Member of the Alberta Film Development Review Committee struck by the Ministers of Community Development and Economic Development in 1998 and again in 2001. He was also a Member of Alberta Film Commission Advisory Council to Minister of Economic Development 2004 - 2006.

Phillips was presented with an Alberta Achievement Award by Premier Peter Lougheed in 1976 for garnering national and international film festival awards for the film Following the Plough/Chant du Tracteur. He won many awards for his work as film producer, co-producer and executive producer, including Best Public Relations Film at the Canadian Film and Television Association Film Awards, Best Documentary Over 30 Minutes at the Yorkton Short Film Festival, as well as many Alberta Motion Picture Industry Awards for Best Educational Film, Best Documentary, Best Motivational Film, Best Drama Under 30 Minutes, Best Short, and Best of Festival.

Phillips married in 1981 and their children were born in 1982 and 1985. Phillips dissolved his film company in 2006 and retired in Edmonton.

Fonds consists of 16mm films and film elements, videotapes and audiotapes for films (some completed productions and some not completed), including Born Hutterite, Crash Course Alberta, Shadows of War, Great Divide Waterfall Project, Newfoundland After Codfish, Coking in the Crowsnest Pass, and Rock Fest. Also included are proposals, contracts, business files, minutes, scripts, correspondence, and research material for films that Dale Phillips worked on; office files for companies and other projects that Dale Phillips worked on such as Filmwest, Edmonton's Snowflake Fantasy Winterfest; an Industrial Archaeology conference; issues of the literary review magazine NeWest Review for which Phillips was writer and editor; other magazines, newspapers and newsletters; and film industry reference books.

The fonds also consists of material that was created for a documentary entitled Where Time Begins, aka Chukotka. The documentary follows Niobe Thompson, a then-doctoral candidate at the Scott Polar Research Institute at Cambridge University, and his wife, Linda Chang, on a year-long journey through Chukotka in the far northeastern tip of Russia as part of a research and humanitarian project with indigenous populations. The audiovisual material related to this project documents the entirety of Thompson and Chang's work in Chukota with many hours shot with Albertan First Nations communities, as well. The project records also include textual material such as shot lists, production files, budgets, proposals, and correspondence.

For more information on Clearwater Media, the production company that created Where Time Begins, see the Tom Radford fonds (PR3736).