Dozens of students showed up to the M.E. Show [4], Friday night, even though most of them had no idea what they were going to see. But performers Matthew Lax and Ellen Burke, both senior film majors at Syracuse University, wanted it that way.
“Nobody that came really knew what was going on tonight,” Burke said after the show held at SPARK [5] Contemporary Art Space. “We just did a really good job of advertising for the show.”
M.E. put on a live-action version of their MeTube video diaries [6] in which Lax plays a drag queen with Burke as his sidekick. They also showed one of their many Michael Jackson impersonation videos.
The show was a laid back affair, with most people audience members sipping on drinks and a DJ playing music throughout the night. Lax and Burke collected donations to support future projects.
The biggest mystery of thenight was solved when a giant paper-mâché-like ball in the center of the main room turned out to be a makeshift piñata filled with confetti and mini spirit bottles.
“We didn’t just want to have a show, we wanted to have a party show,” Lax said. “Everyone seemed to enjoy this.”
Lax showed off his sense of humor by placing framed rejection letters from UCLA, Columbia and NYU in the front row. All three were schools he had applied to for their Master of Fine Arts programs.
“To be slightly pretentious, I call that my ‘crowning achievement’,” Lax said.
Lax and Burke met during their freshman year at SU and quickly became good friends. Eventually, they collaborated on their own projects.
“Once we realized that making regular film wasn’t really what we were in to, we started to work together on our own stuff and bonded over that,” Burke said. “A lot of our work reflects the YouTube culture of today, the sort of narcissistic Internet culture going on.”
“Our main theme is the identity of relationships,” Lax added.
The two describe their M.E. style as on the fly, last minute, do-it-yourself kind of work. They say it sometimes comes off as sloppy to others, but they see it as having more concrete artistic value.
So far, the reaction from students has been positive as well.
“People seem to be interested in us,” Burke said. “Not necessarily because of the video
content, but with the way we put ourselves out there.”
Lax and Burke live streamed the event on their website [7], which the two hope will bring them some outside exposure. They also plan on participating in other local film screenings.
Burke says she is looking to get a job in film production after graduation. Lax isn’t quite
as sure of what he’ll be doing. But for now he has the M.E. projects to keep him busy.
“I just want to keep doing this and get paid for it.”
