Hey!
It's been a good week. Let's take a look.

David was on a hunt for the perfect piece of dead branch for an idea he's got. We walked up to the reservoir during golden hour to search. I pointed at branches I thought looked good, David said "no", I pointed at another nice looking stick, David said "hmmmm... maybe... but no." Repeat forever and ever.

Aha!?!

No.

I took selfies with a view while David muttered about stupid sticks.

And found lovely grass that photographed well in the setting sun.

I had a good outfit week.The weather was sunny and warm, but I could still wear hats without dying from heat stroke. So in other words: Perfect Weather.

This one is a personal favorite. Red and black always look smashing together. I had red lips too, of course.

Here's a parade of car selfies.
Two with hats, all three of them with the same pair of black sunglasses.

We found the perfect mid century secretary desk for my work space. It's so beautiful! And Swedish, which is a little funny considering everything.

We've also bought a rug, two bedside lamps and two nightstands. All on their way to us right now in different speed (days, weeks, hopefully not months).

As usual David put together a Behind the scenes video for our latest short Closet Space. So much work goes into these little films and it's nice to be able to show you a little of that.

On Wednesday I met up with my friend Caroline and we walked around the entire reservoir. I hadn't done that before so that was fun. Even though I stepped on a rattlesnake. Luckily it didn't get angry, and I jumped away in half a second, screaming my lungs off.
A little adventure on a weekday.

I tried this season's trendy hair style: pigtails.
I can always get behind trends when they're as spooky as this.

And yesterday we found out that Closet Space got a Vimeo Staff Pick! So awesome!
This is the third of our videos that's been rewarded Vimeo Staff Pick, previous ones being Lights Out and Not So Fast. Yesterday the number of views started to climb fast and now we've passed 30 000 on Vimeo, and 26 000 on youtube.

Since walking around the reservoir I've wanted to show David the beautiful route, so yesterday afternoon when we felt like going for a long walk we went there.
It's almost 10 km (6 miles) from our door, up to the lake, around it and then back home so it takes a while. But it's so worth it!

Hollywood sign looking pretty over there.

No, Hollywood. You don't have to think this way. You are your mind too. Body and mind. A functional body, or not. But I'm thinking you mean it in an aesthetic way and that is just bullshit.

Pretty as all hell.

Abandoned houses in valleys always make my trespassing loving heart sing.

Spooky trees doing spooky things.

And the most magical view. Like a painting.

David got a call. The cell phone reception isn't great up in the hills so he had to stand perfectly still to be able to hear the other person. I was annoying and took photos while waiting. Obviously.
And that was my week.

/Lotta

HEY!
Look at this! A new short from David and me!
This one is a bit different from the others though. Less horror, more humor. But still very much spooky.

See it in the embedded video below, or follow the links to our youtube or vimeo.

So, I moved from the haunted Lights Out apartment! But what good did that do?

Hope you liked it!

/Lotta

I realized I needed a real headshot (Not just selfies and outfit photos, hehe). At first I had planned to take it myself but since I took Davids headshot I thought it would be fun if he took mine. I like it very much.

I also like this one with my Peekaboo Tooth:

There was A LOT of photos that featured Peekaboo Tooth- making the prettiest photo look super silly.

One of the reasons for the headshot was that I wanted a photo on my imdb page! And here it is!

Since we have a full kitchen now it’s so fun to cook again! I’m not very fond of the gas oven though. Yesterday we got an oven thermometer and found out that when the oven should be 350 f it was really only 275 f. So now I know why everything I’ve made this far has been undercooked. Anyways, we celebrated by cooking this lovely dinner.
Pan fried sun chokes in sage butter and Baked Parmesan Cod. Very very tasty! And super fancy on a monday. I made a cold sauce to go with it all, with sourcream, garlic, parmesan, salt and pepper. By the way: Sun chokes!!! OMG! SO tasty! We had fried sun chokes (omg omg omg!) at a restaurant a few days ago and now I’m HOOKED!

An apartment update:

We have a table and chairs now. Our place feel like home.

My book. Looking pretty as all hell. I’m working on the shop details, so stay tuned.

A Hollywood update:
I realized I hadn't showed you this yet! David made a little video about Lights Out and what’s been going on. He’s planning on doing a series of behind the scenes videos showing you the work that went into turning Lights Out into a feature film. It feels so good to finally be able to talk about this. Hopefully we’ll have a trailer to show you soon too.

Other than that:
I have been fighting my chronic urticaria lately. Something I’m not going to show a picture of, because YUCK. Think boiling lizard skin and you’re close. We’ve been talking about how to use it in one of our horror shorts but we haven't figured out how to solve the problem with me mostly crying from itchiness. So here's a selfie from when I was bored from itching all day, and I put on a velvet cape and a leaf hat just to have something to do.

Oh, and here's me and a cactus.
Yesterday was COLD. And windy.

Well, that was all for now.
Talk to you again soon!

/Lotta

2015 was a year for the books.
Strangely (stupidly?) enough I didn’t blog a lot, so let’s hope I’ll remember it all without evidence in dated blog posts.
I have been thinking about how to do the yearly recap this time, it’s not as easy as usual because I don’t have a lot of entries to back up the rambling. So I’m gonna ramble, mkay?

At new years 2014 I decided that 2014 was going to be The year to be brave. And I think that turned out to be true, in many ways. At the start of 2015 I knew that big things were about to happen with Lights Out so I didn’t really decide on a plan of action. If anything, I decided to follow along on whatever were to happen.
And that has sort of been the theme for this entire year.
Just follow along, and see what happens.
A lot of things have happened.

2015 started with a whole lot of waiting. David were in talks with Hollywood about turning Lights Out into a feature film, and the plans were so far along that we knew we would have to relocate to Los Angeles for a while. We didn’t know when though, and we didn’t know for sure. Hard to plan your life when you don’t know for sure.
I blogged a bit:

We kept busy making things. We had an idea for a new horror short and went location scouting in the woods. Sweden decided to turn into the most beautiful winter wonderland and we tried to work with it but it was just too cold and snowy for us, so we went home and made Attic Panic instead.

And then one day Hollywood called and said ”Can you come on Friday?”.
On the last day of March we took a plane to Los Angeles. We had a hotel to stay in for the first couple of weeks before we could find something a little more permanent.

In the first couple of weeks David didn’t have too much work to do, so we went to the zoo, had sandwiches with a view from Mulholland drive and ate a lot of frozen yoghurt.

I went into this entire adventure knowing that I would be alone a lot. And that I wouldn't have anything to do during the days. So I was kinda prepared, but it was still strange. To be in a country where I’m not allowed to work, where I don’t know anybody and where I don't have any of my things for jewelry making.

We moved to a tiny house in Burbank and I started to investigate our neighborhood.
During all this time it was still a secret to the world what David and I were even doing in LA.
For almost a year we carried around this huge secret about the most exciting thing in our lives, it makes for quite a lonely life not to be able to talk about such a huge thing.
Our families and closest friends knew of course and talking on the phone with them was always great.
I thought I was going to blog every day, but when I couldn’t tell all of you about the reasons behind our adventure in the first place, I just didn’t know how to blog anymore. And that feeling has been hard to shake (I hope I’ll want to blog more in 2016 but for the everyday life there’s always instagram. Go follow!).

But then, in June, we could start telling the world.

During this time we started to work on getting me into the movie as well. It was a nerve wracking time for me, because what if I came all the way from Sweden, for a shortfilm I was part of making, and didn’t get anything. That would have sucked so hard.
I was scared, and nervous and felt very powerless. I’m not used to not being able to make things happen for myself. And Hollywood is a scary place.
Especially if you are a woman. And you maybe don’t fit into the very narrow Hollywood ideals.

In July the part was mine. But I needed a visa to be able to work, so after applying for that a whole new game of waiting started before the All Clear came.
July was also the month when David started shooting Lights Out.
I went to the film set every other day. It was amazing to see how everything worked, but most of all it was wonderful to see David direct.

Being a Director’s wife on set is not the same as being an Actor on set. Even though it was nice to be able to come and go as I wanted, it was AMAZING to be there as a part of the crew. A meaningful person for the making of the movie.
I had a trailer. And hair and makeup people that came in between scenes and made sure every hair lay right and that my makeup didn’t move in the heat.
Being in all that hustle and bustle was fantastic!

After shooting was over David had a few days off and we went to a cabin in the woods to relax. It was heaven.

We moved from Burbank to Hollywood hills and it was like something switched in me. The neighborhood was beautiful and I could walk places every day. I started taking lessons from an Accent reduction coach, not to totally rid my accent but to feel more secure in talking English. It’s hard to act in another language than your own- All those little nuances that you know without even thinking about them aren't there anymore. I felt like I was starting from scratch with my acting, and that is not a great feeling when you’ve been acting since you were eleven.
I needed to build confidence in my work all over again.
The accent classes were exactly what I needed!
I also went to improv classes and that was great for me, as I’m used to being completely in control on stage or when making the horror shorts with David. In Improv I had to just let go.
It was so hard. Fun but hard. I’m going to keep taking improv classes during 2016. And acting classes too.

During all this I've been working on a project by myself. I decided over a year ago to really take advantage of the fact that I would be alone a lot in LA, and make a book of self portraits. I bought a tripod for my iphone and set out to capture scenes everywhere I went. Sort of like learning Los Angeles through self portraits. That book is finished now and I'll show it to you soon. It's called Alone in LA and I'm extremely proud of it.
The highlight was when I had the opportunity to roam around an abandoned hospital two days in a row. I took so many self portraits in those scary hallways.

Anyways. The last couple of months of 2015 was all about finding routines, sort of. We were still living in tiny furnished apartments and had realized we needed to find something more permanent. Because we’re staying in LA for a good while. I spent my days walking, drinking tea at cafes and making the photo book Alone in LA.

Going home to Sweden over christmas was wonderful, but you know what? I missed LA.
We had a new apartment waiting for us when we got back, and I can't wait to start turning that place into a home.
That’s what’s been missing. A sense of home.
When we now got back to LA it’s with so much more confidence than when we got here on the last day of march and I can't wait to see what 2016 brings.
If I dare to hope (and dream and plan) it’s for a daily life that feels fulfilling, new projects- together as well as by myself- and a true feeling of belonging.

Oh, and did I tell you? Lights Out is coming to theaters July 22! ISN’T IT FRICKING AWESOME?!?!?!

Oh, and if you're interested in reading some more, here's a few text posts from 2015 that I'm particularly proud of:
Catching up on yourself
Budget wardrobe tips and tricks
To stand out
The feeling of not yet knowing
Men writing women