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James' (formerly known as Jacob James Henry) longstanding interests have been in poetry and music. A graduate of UC Berkeley, James originally trained as a jazz saxophonist before transitioning to music production and composition in the 90s in New York. In the 2000s, he traveled and lived in Japan while self training in filmmaking and launching into screenwriting.
He worked as music composer and producer for the independent film Divided We Stand (2000). He was Associate producer for the critically acclaimed documentary series Hidden Colors (2011). In 2015 James wrote and directed his first short film, a comedy short "Save the Dog." Subsequently, James' video-poem "Identity" won Indi.com's Poetry Challenge, garnering the 2nd highest online votes of the competition.
In 2017 James was hired as screenwriter for the Amazon digital TV streaming series "A Billion to One", which debuted in October of 2017 (CollabFeature). Also in 2017, he was a quarterfinalist for Scriptapalooza's TV Screenplay competition
In 2018, James' short "Meghan's Challenge" won 1st place in Los Angeles Independent Film Festival Awards. Soon after, his Black-ish spec was top 10 in Scriptapalooza's TV competition (2018).
In September 2018 James won the Roadmap Writer's Diversity Initiative competition, writer mentorship training program for new screenwriting voices in Hollywood.
In 2019-2020 James worked as sound mixer and sound designer for the independent LGBTQ feature "Matcha and Vanilla", featuring Japanese actors Tomoko Hayakawa and Qyoko Kudo. As of 2021, the film is streaming on the Gagaoolala platform.
Early in 2021, he completed the Filmmaking program workshop at New York Film Academy, on editing, directing and screenwriting.
Later in 2021, his spec script for a psycho thriller web series "Frayed Rope" won the 4th Dimension Film Festival and was awarded 2nd Rounder status in Austin Film Festival. The Asian female-led series, which stars and is co-produced by Dante Carver, began pre-production in 2021 and is to be produced in 2022.
In addition to developing the series, a pilot and other spec feature screenplays, James is set to produce a Japan-based short film ("First Date in Osaka"), targeted for 2022/23.
James has also appeared in various TV commercials and radio, video games, TV programs and feature films in Japan, as actor, songwriter and voice-over artist.
