A little about me...
Tom GillBorn on a Wednesday in the Summer of '92 in Reading, I completed 13 years of educations and a short stint in the Thames Valley Police before working in customer service and have amassed nearly 10 years in Bars, Restaurants and Pubs. Shift work suited me fantastically as I never really wanted to be stuck working in an office somewhere. It also gave me ample time to read, write and play Video Games - my favourite form of media. It's like a novel or a film that you get to take part in and shape how the world takes form; it's truly incredible.
Currently, I work for Microsoft in their Games Testing Department. This has exposed me to a wider range of Voice and Performance acting which in turn has given me more experience and examples to draw influence from. Previously, I worked as a Games Master for an Escape Room company. As the company had a key focus on the immersion behind each room, the customers were briefed and guided through each room by a themed character. I chose to go one step further by providing a thematic voice, researched in media and rehearsed over time to provide the customers with the best experience, catered to their chosen room. That was the first time I considered Voice Acting as an actual career path for me. I have always appreciated Voice Acting in animation & games, as the actors aren't able to physically present themselves to emote and so they must put so much more of themselves into their voice. My main hobbies include a variety of Video Games, largely single player, story driven titles but also some multiplayer and puzzle/mobile games. I currently write and run a Dungeons and Dragons campaign for some of my colleagues and have run campaigns in the past. I'm in the note-taking, idea-forming part of preparing to write a Novel, one which I hope to become a trilogy. I also play an assortment of instruments, ranging from Classical Guitar since I was 9 years old, bass guitar in a pop punk bank during/shortly after school and providing freelance acoustic guitar music to students and photographers.
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Voice ActingFor as long as I can remember, I have always performed some semblance of "silly voices" (as my mother would put it!) For a lot of the time it was to hide the fact it took a long time for my voice to break growing up... Since then however, I found myself frequently doing impressions of characters I encountered in various medias. Whether it was yelling for great periods of time, doing my best to turn Super Saiyan (admit it, you tried too) or repeating catchphrases to friends in the classroom, I have always had a great fascination in the sounds and voices created by actors, voice or otherwise, even if I hadn't realised it yet.
My first real memory of any kind of voice acting stemmed from all the video games I played growing up. Largely World of Warcraft based at first, then flowing into other games I was in contact with, mainly the Halo and Gears of War franchises. Even before all these, games like Fable and Metal Gear Solid had a ton of voice acting that I loved to replicate and join in with. Since I wasn't an overly social individual, it allowed me as much time as I liked to practice even though I didn't notice that's what I was doing at first. In more recent years, I have taken to watching more Anime, mainly Studio Ghibli pictures and watching Dungeons and Dragons campaigns presented on platforms such as YouTube. Listening to how a voice actor can put so much emotion and depth into a character really got me committed to starting the Voice Acting journey for myself. Voice Actor Seth Green once said, "Don't imitate anybody... ...the thing that will make you stand out is to find what you're good at and bring yourself to it." Being able to do a great impression of a person or a character - people will go "oh hey I know that voice you're that guy from such n such", but that voice won't be your own creation. I want to be part of a creative process that allows me to donate my voice to a new character or characters and to breathe life into them. Learning their personality and flaws and what drives them and using this to influence the voice that I can supply them with so that character truly feels alive to the audience. |
I have my own Home Studio with recording and editing software enabling me to work from home and use creative feedback to polish a characters voice as necessary.
My favourite and most influential of voice actors can be seen in the following list, although a great many more deserve to be on my list for being such memorable background characters in any media. None the less and in no order, these are some of the most fantastic Voice Actors and biggest influences on both my life and my decision to get into voice acting.
Fortunately, my voice sits about mid range - neither too deep or too high pitched. This allows me to deliver a wide variety of voices, either deep and grizzled or even higher and fairer. This, coupled with my love for the fantasy genre and video games in general, mean that I can apply my voice to a wealth of different characters in different scenarios. |
WritingMy main interest in writing started towards the end of secondary school. Allowing to study using my favourite novel as reference ("Eldest" by Christopher Paolini) was of a great benefit to me. With this and the writing course I commenced January last year, I began to analyse not just how an author writes, but why they write that like, for example, their experiences and what they have gone through in life influences their writings.
The majority of my writing takes the form of stories or "campaigns" that I write in the setting of the Dungeons and Dragons universe. Some of these can be short, a few pages of A4 for several hours of D&D game play. Currently however, I am working on my longest, most involved and most expansive campaign yet which has been running since the beginning of June 2019. I write a great many pages of in depth descriptive narrative with detailed story lines, plot hooks and, most importantly - vivid voiced characters created to feel grounded and relatable for my players. |
I am working on my own novel which I hope to become a trilogy at some point, writing down ideas on the many notebooks I have in and around my desk! Fantasy genre is my absolute favourite but I am allowing myself more influences from folklore and horror also.
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