James has worked for 40 years as a location recordist, sound editor, mixer and sound designer. Films with Rolf de Heer include Charlie’s Country, Alexandra’s Project, The Tracker, The Old Man Who Read Love Stories and Dingo for which he won the1991 Australian Film Institute Award for Best Sound Track. James has sound designed 26 productions, and received 16 awards in both Europe and Australia. He has worked extensively with film maker Paul Cox across many titles including Human Touch, Lust and Revenge, Molokai and Innocence, for which he won the 2000 IF Award for Best Sound Track. James won an AFI Award for Best Sound Track for The Light Horsemen, and the Golden Clapper Award for Artistic and Technical Excellence at the Venice Film Festival for Bad Boy Bubby.  James was instrumental in developing the binaural sound system used in the film and is well known in the industry for working on productions that explore (and test) the boundaries of cinema sound.