Tom Keegan is a BAFTA nominated performance director for games, film, and theatre.
Tom Keegan is one of the world’s top performance directors for video games. His work includes AAA franchises, including Battlefield, Star Wars, Wolfenstein, Call of Duty, Resident Evil, Need for Speed, Mirror’s Edge, VR titles “Archangel” and “Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners.” He received a BAFTA nomination for his work on “Wolfenstein: The New Colossus” and his products have won multiple BAFTAs, Game Awards, and the Golden Joystick.
Born in New York City, Tom holds a degree in Theatre from Adelphi University. He made many appearances in the downtown NYC experimental theatre and movement scene as an actor and director, creating and performing original material through personal stories, characters, flowers, fruit, spray paint and live electricity.
After moving to Los Angeles, Tom worked in animation development at Hanna-Barbera on shows such as “Powerpuff Girls,” Jonny Bravo” and “Cow and Chicken.” In 1998 be began working on CD ROMs such as “Blaster,” “JumpStart,” and the ever popular “Barbie,” before moving on to the action genre in classic games such as “Chronicles of Riddick” and “The Darkness,” and has worked on over 50 game titles.
Tom’s work also includes film. His short, “Sweet Life” is part of the Frameline: New Voices collection, has won awards at festivals and been shown on television internationally. His feature documentary, “Out in India: A Family’s Journey” won the jury prize at the Torino LGBT Film Festival, among other awards.
As a director, Tom is actor-focused. He combines his decades of experience and study in acting, movement, and directing to bring out the best in performers. He works deeply with his development teams to find the subtext and nuances in game scripts and achieve the teams’ goals in the performance capture volume and voice-over booth. He frequently lectures at development studios and game conferences on performance and storytelling.
Tom teaches professional level acting classes several times a year in various locations throughout the globe. His workshops focus on refining technical levels of expertise in voice, movement, script analysis, and acting so the performer is ready and inspired in the performance capture volume, voice booth, on stage, or in front of a camera.
The craft of acting is an oral tradition, passed down from teacher to student and refined with each succeeding generation according to the technical demands of the times. Tom has studied acting, directing, voice and movement intensely for decades with many influential teachers, including Judith Weston (directing and acting), Patsy Rodenberg (Voice and Speech), Suzanne Shepherd (Meisner), and Ned Manderino (Method). He had trained and performed in countless forms of movement, including yoga, contact improvisation, modern dance, ballet, mime, and has deep knowledge and training in body work techniques such as Polarity therapy, cranial sacral therapy, shiatsu and massage. He combines all of these into a unique teaching style that is both personal and professional, teaching actors to reach into their inner selves and perform with energy, connection and commitment.
Currently, as of 2020, Tom’s classes focus on preparing actors in the medium of performance capture, requiring professional level skill in acting, voice, and movement.
A directing program is currently being designed.