I'm still in the process of putting things together, so not all available videos are on their pages yet.

Old site description:

There were hardly any long takes in my movies, because I was always cutting. While it controls the pace and keeps the excitement level up, editing can also lend to some falsity. When two shots are cut together, everybody knows that the two incidents did not actually occur at the same time. Long takes can seem more realistic, because the action is continuous. Everybody knew I was a good editor, so I wanted to try something different, a movie without any editing. This is like a remake of Alfred Hitchock’s Rope and Edgar Allan Poe’s Tell Tale Heart, both combined. Unlike Rope, rather than shooting it mostly from a theatrical viewpoint, I moved the camera around constantly. The plot involved two colleagues who murder someone in their apartment and have to hide his body when unexpected guests arrive. Throughout the film, they grow increasingly nervous as guilt overwhelms them.

Description from Cinemassacre.com:

This is a movie I made in 2000 as a homage to Alfred Hitchock’s 1948 film “Rope”. Hitchock created great suspense using long takes. The camera would run continuously until they’d have to stop every 10 minutes or so and load more film. Whenever this happened, Hitchock had no choice but to use cuts and sometimes would try to disguise them by cutting while the camera moved behind a character’s back.

Unlike Hitchcock, I was shooting on VHS, so I could shoot for 2 hours straight if I wanted. So what I tried here was sort of an experiment. To shoot a movie in one single take. No editing! (until the end) It’s about 15 minutes long. I gave the actors general directions, but allowed them to improvise their dialogue as long as they stick to the story. It was challenging for all of us. The VHS camera was bulky and did not have the convenience of an LCD screen. So I had my eye in the viewfinder the whole time.

This is definitely no masterpiece, but if you’re studying film, it may be very interesting to check out. One warning: there is A LOT of screaming near the end. Have your volume control ready for that.

James's old ratings:

Back in 2003 James included star ratings with each film he listed on his filmography on his website (the text under the star rating was his description of what the star rating meant). Later on he switched to ratings out of ten.

Eventually, he dropped the ratings entirely.

Poster: