The Complete Guide to Videogame Performance Directing: Place, Time, Action

by Tom Keegan

Overview

This book teaches the complex, sometimes confounding, and often beautiful art of directing live performance for videogames. Starting from a clear and comprehensive introduction to the nuts and bolts of directing on the motion capture floor and in the voiceover booth, this book dives deeper with concrete examples from the author’s 25‑year career directing seminal games from the early years to today’s blockbusters.

Identifying the Place (What is the physical environment?), Time (What just happened?), and Action (What do the characters want?) of every scene empowers directors with essential tools to dive straight into the subtext, the life below the words. Through step‑by‑step instructions, this book shows how to make scenes and lines come alive. It offers real‑world advice on everything from casting to table reads, rehearsal, and production days. In addition, readers can find valuable advice about self‑care and sustaining a long‑term career as a performance director.

This book is sure to be an essential resource for directors, actors, voiceover artists, and game developers who want to master videogame performance.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781032914541
Publisher:	CRC Press
Publication date:	07/22/2025
Pages:	202
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.19(h) x (d)

About the Author

Tom Keegan trained as an actor, movement artist, and director, performing in theaters throughout the US and Europe. He worked in animation at Hanna‑Barbera Studios and Universal Cartoon Studios before transitioning to videogames in 1998, where he has performance‑directed some of the most popular and successful videogames of the last 25 years. His award‑winning work includes AAA franchises such as Battlefield, Wolfenstein, Call of Duty, Resident Evil, Need for Speed, Dead Rising, and Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners. He received a BAFTA nomination for his work on Wolfenstein: The New Colossus. He is best known for his direction on Jedi: Fallen Order, Jedi: Survivor, and Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. Throughout the year, Tom offers classes in acting and directing through his company, TomK Studios. www.tomkeegan.net

Table of Contents

Introduction: Crying to the Virtual Gods: CD-ROMS, 1. Beyond the Ones and Zeros, 2. Three Indispensable Tools: Place, Time, Action, 3. Finding Spine and Subtext, 4. Analyzing the Script, 5. Working with Actors, 6. The Director’s Most Important Job, 7. Casting the Videogame, 8. Workshop and Rehearsal, 9. Directing in the Volume, 10. Directing in the Voiceover Booth, 11. Surviving and Thriving as a Videogame Performance Director, Appendix A, Glossary, Index

Editorial Reviews

“The Complete Guide to Videogame Performance Directing: Place, Time, Action is an invaluable resource to learn the magic Tom Keegan delivers in his direction. Now you don’t have to be on set to access it — you can literally have it at your fingertips.” – Troy Baker, BAFTA Nominated Actor, Videogame Performance Director

From the Publisher