Six and a half years ago and I found myself on the set of Uzi’s Party, cooking lunch for the cast and crew. Although there was technically only one star in the film, the Roger’s Park home was crowded, everyone working diligently under the direction of friend and fellow School of the Art Institute of Chicago alum, Lyra Hill. To be honest, I volunteered for this to get in on Lyra’s magic.
Sir Lyra Hill is a force—their transition from filmmaker, to Master of Ceremonies, to comic artist, to performer, is entrancing and seemingly effortless. Their method is thoughtful and meticulous. Lyra is the kind of artist and organizer that we all admire, and I’m very excited to have had the chance to connect with them again over this serendipitous showing of Uzi’s Party.
Join us this Sunday (02/09) to catch Lyra’s film, Uzi’s Party, which has never before been shown on 16mm film – as Lyra says, “its true and best form” – in Chicago.
Alyssa Martinez: Your sister, Johanna co-wrote and starred in the film—what sparked the idea for the film and your collaboration with one another?
Lyra Hill: The technical challenge of the movie was actually my first inspiration. Then, the setting of a group of adolescent girls having a Ouija party. I experienced a pivotal, terrifying sleepover around age 12, where my friends and I lost our shit over (what seemed to be) Ouija possession. My sister was 19 when I wrote the film. I consulted heavily with her in developing the signature of each character. I saw her in my mind's eye when I imagined the film, and I knew I could trust her with such a grueling project. I never considered anyone else for the role.
AM: How did she prepare to embody each of these five different characters during filming?
LH: Months of discussion and play familiarized us both with the characters. And Jojo did amazing work in the short time before we started shooting. A lot came together in the week preceding production. I flew her out to Chicago and we collected all the costumes, wigs, accessories and color palettes of each character, with a lot of help from Marjorie Bailey and Jenna Caravello.
In order to film shots with dialog between visible characters, we had to pre-record the dialog at the pace we desired, so that we could be sure each character, filmed separately using multiple exposure, spoke at the right time. This technical necessity meant that Jojo and I stayed up late nights running through every scene. On set, I would listen to the recordings during takes and whisper the lines back to her to keep her in sync.
A while after filming was done, she told me that making Uzi's Party required her to pull her personality apart. Many people watch the film and don't realize that she plays every role. When she put herself back together, she said, it was in a new way with new knowledge. I am still in awe at how quickly she transformed, again and again, every day on set.
AM: All effects for Uzi's Party are done in camera – which is amazing. What were the reasons, both technically and thematically, for your decision to work this way?
LH: I love to do things that are almost impossible! Haha, it's true and it's very painful. I was heavily invested in optical printing and in-camera matting at the time, and I wanted to use my skills for a narrative picture about possession. Perhaps I was possessed by the film. I'd never filmed sync sound or written a script before. Once the task became clear, the world opened up to me. I dove into concepts of multiple selves and split personalities. The dark and spooky backdrop provided cover for the matte lines, where different takes overlap on screen. I knew, based on my limited resources, that it would be a scrappy, imperfect image, not slick like a studio production. I wanted to create the feeling that not only the story but the material itself might fall apart at any moment. I actually expected it to come out much stranger than it did. It casts a glamour!
AM: As a fellow alum of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, I know from experience that the community really encourages students to work in different artistic disciplines—your work is especially interdisciplinary. Will you talk briefly about your experience at SAIC and how it shaped you?
LH: The fact that SAIC encouraged me to bounce around departments was life changing. I didn't have an easy time in school, but I did make a plethora of connections that blossomed into years of successful collaborations after school, and I had the freedom to wander down several paths I never expected. Some of those paths became big parts of my artistic identity. In my last year, I co-organized workshops and screenings for the Experimental Film Society, which turned out to be the first year of my still-growing career as an event organizer and emcee.
Good relations with staff and faculty at SAIC allowed me the resources I needed to shoot and finish Uzi's Party. They have incredible 16mm facilities. I spent hours and years after graduation borrowing equipment and sitting in editing rooms, cutting my negative. I could not have made this film without such strong support.
AM: When you moved to LA a few years back, you began the “ritual variety show,” MULTI CULT. Will you tell me about how performers participate in this show as well as what your role is as facilitator?
LH: Yes! MULTI CULT is the work of my life! I am putting everything I learned in Chicago and more into this project. There is a submission form for every show, it's always open and free to apply. Sometimes I reach out to artists as well. The event happens quarterly, and each show features 3-4 different performances after grounding, casting, intention and a sermon by yours truly. I am the host, curator, and producer. I have a great team. Because it's a group ritual where the audience participates in creating the magic, I also priestess the show, meaning I hold and conduct the proceedings as sacred. The title that says it all is Master of Ceremonies.
AM: Do you see this role at MULTI CULT as an evolution of your role at the performative comix series BRAIN FRAME (which I and so many Chicagoans loved), a totally different thing, or somewhere in between?
LH: I think about BRAIN FRAME a lot while I'm working on MULTI CULT. My role is very similar, but the content and the context for the show is different. Los Angeles is a different context than Chicago. A ritual variety show invites a lot more artistic diversity than a performative comix reading series. In a way, it's much more difficult because I'm constantly focusing on paradox and multiplicity, both of which are impossible to focus, by their very nature. I thought that BRAIN FRAME was difficult to describe while I was doing it, but I've really done it now.
AM: Ha! Anyone who’s had the pleasure of attending one of your events knows what an incredible host you are—you have a spellbinding way of engaging the audience. When you host, how do you become that person? Do you feel different within yourself when you’re hosting vs when you're not?
LH: Aww thank you!! Hosting comes naturally to me, not to understate how much I've practiced and studied to become better. I started out as the people-pleasing mediator in a volatile family, growing into an exhibitionist control freak in my spiritual community, and by the time I found myself hosting live events I was actually deeply shocked at how much I liked it, since I avoided performance in art school. Now I understand that when I am MC, I go to a raw place more true to myself than the version I'm playing in my day-to-day life. I channel the powers I generally repress in polite company.
AM: What are you working on now or what’s next?
LH: It's all MULTI CULT all the way! I have a show coming up in LA on the same night as this event, unfortunately, but I will be in Chicago at the end of February to perform at the fourth anniversary of Zine Not Dead! Which means I need to write a new comic this month. I've been releasing videos on YouTube: documentation of MULTI CULT as well as anarchist diatribes. I'm working towards sustaining myself with Patreon (patreon.com/multicult) so I can make all the things that are clamoring to be made inside my head and heart. MULTI CULT is a recurring show, but it's also an ethic, a framework, and a production foundation for an infinite variety of magical ideas. It's the only container that can hold me.
