Can an Actor with an Office Job Create '50 Characters in 50 Weeks'?

While most of us bemoan the recession, adjust to scaling back our expenses, and live in fear of the dreaded lay off, an ambitious out-of-work actor decided to buck the trend, throw in the towel (temporarily), and take a dreaded office job (no, his name’s not Scotty).

He also decided to share with us the voices in his head, nearly giving himself another full time job in the process.

Brent Rose (formerly of Wallstrip and co-creator and star of The Leif Garrison Project with Bill Pullman) bills his 50 Characters in 50 Weeks project as “An actor’s attempt to create a new, distinct character every week, for fifty weeks. Video every Wednesday.” Rose blogs on the site to keep us up to speed on his creative process and stress level, which is high considering his attempt to balance a job and a life with writing, producing, and filming (never during office hours, of course) character studies every seven days.

Though Rose has only now hit the four week mark, the first few results are well realized and promising.

So

far, Rose’s character studies feature him alone or with a partner, but he’s not opposed to the idea of collaboration. And though he’s barely made a dent in the intended fifty, Rose (trained as a theatre actor) has already made a handful of compelling videos featuring believable and particular world views from a variety of characters.

There is no dialogue in Week Three’s “Al Griffin Goes Outside.” Using only physical awkwardness, Rose convincingly portrays a depressed, socially awkward loner. Without giving away the ending, what starts out as a study of a pitiful character becomes a touching tribute to living with loss.

Rose does a nice job of disappearing into each incarnation via spot-on costuming and thick accents. To date, he’s given us an effeminate man with an inappropriate love of trees, an eastern European stalker, a classic New York loner (above), and a sober man with an alcohol problem (below).

Check out and support one of the most novel web video projects I’ve seen from an individual that doesn’t involve dancing at www.50in50.wordpress.com.