It was while studying at Australian Film, Television and Radio School (AFTRS) that Moorhouse completed her first short film entitled Pavane in 1983. Moorhouse then graduated from AFTRS in 1984 and started work as television script Editor. She created a twelve-part series called c/o The Bartons for the ABC in 1988—the series was based on one of her short films at AFTRS called The Siege of the Bartons' Bathroom. Some of the other television shows she worked on included The Flying Doctors, Out of the Blue, A Place to Call Home, and The Humpty Dumpty Man. Moorhouse made her feature film debut in 1991 with Proof. The idea for the film came from Moorhouse’s interest in blindness and photography. She initially intended on this being a short film but since she wasn’t able to secure the funding for a short she decided to make it into a feature film instead. It took Proof five years to go into production, but when it did it had a budget of 1.1 million dollars. The film ended up taking six weeks to shoot in Melbourne during the winter of 1990.