Hi!
We just had one of the craziest weekends so far in this fantastic Lights Out adventure we're on. Let's have a look, shall we? If any of you said no, I'm not listening to you; I'm gonna show you anyway!

We were invited to Youtube space in New York to hold a master class there about our journey from youtube to Hollywood. Since David is super busy prepping for Annabelle 2 we couldn't even stay the night, so it was the quickest New York trip ever. We had 8 hours there before we had to go back, but it was the most amazing 8 hours so it was definitely worth it.

We took the plane from LA late Friday evening and arrived in New York on Saturday morning. They had booked us a hotel room so we had somewhere to relax when we got there, but all we had time for was to take a shower and change clothes. Then we walked across the street to Chelsea Market where Youtube has their studios. Popped into a Starbucks first- my coffee headache was getting crazy!

It took awhile to find Youtube Space because the elevator door was hidden in the deepest hallways of Chelsea Market. It felt a little bit like trying to find Platform 9 3/4 in Harry Potter.

They had built a set there inspired by the film set in the Lights Out feature. And then they had invited a few up-and-coming Youtubers to take part in making their own shorts in the Lights Out set. The youtubers will take inspiration from our short and the feature and make something that fit their channel.
Let's just stop here for a second and think about how crazy it is that the short that David and I made in our apartment in Gothenburg has led to this.
Okay. Let's move on.
Before the master class they wanted to show us the set, filming us at the same time to get our reactions.

Our reactions were like this. Happy and amazed.

Very very giggly.

If you've seen the trailer for Lights Out you'll notice how well they've captured the feel of each set. It was so weird to walk around there, because even though the things and the scale aren't the same it really did feel like we were on the Lights Out set. They did an amazing job recreating these rooms!

Fun with black light!

Here we are with Bettina and Bryan from Warner Bros Marketing.

Lurking around the mannequins.

After that it was time to get dolled up. As always we weren't prepared for this so I had already done my makeup, but since we were going to be on camera I could do with a little touching up.

Love this photo. I think it's funny that you can see David looking at the photo he took of me above here. So meta.

And then it was time! Here we are waiting in a little VIP area next to the stage while Bettina from Warner marketing presented us.

So Spooky!

It was so much fun! I love to do these things with David. It feels so good to be able to talk with people who are in the youtube business too because they get it. They understand what it takes and maybe we can give them something that helps them. We started on youtube and that's were our hearts are. This strange and amazing journey wouldn't have been possible without youtube and it's so important for us to be able to keep that part going. Just because we ended up in Hollywood doesn't mean we'll abandon youtube. The shorts we make are just as important to us as the feature films we will be making. The dream (and plan) is to combine the two, because it's not "either or" for us.

And here it seems like someone in the audience said something nice to us.

After that we went back to the Lights Out inspired set again to show it to the youtubers who are going to make their own shorts in there this week. I'll link to all of them when their videos are up, so stay tuned!

I think this is such a nice photo of me. Hair on fire!

David telling a story about when he filmed a scene in the room that looked like this in the feature.

Typical David gesture while being interviewed.

When we were done with everything at youtube space we all went to a restaurant for drinks and food. We had to take a few photos of us in New York as proof, since we were there such a short amount of time.

Here's everybody!

David wore his Lights Out t shirt. I was going to do that too, but it just didn't feel right. And sometimes you have to just go with that feeling!

Proof of kissing in New York!

I also had to take a photo of Chelsea Market. It's quite the crappy tourist photo but I'm including it anyways because: PROOF!

Our driver was already waiting for us when we got back.

The photographer loved my shoes and said he wanted to take a photo of them and naming it "Portrait of actress Lotta Losten" so the last thing we did before stepping into the car and saying bye bye to everybody was snapping this photo. I made my best to pose with my feet, haha.

And then we took the plane back to LA. We got home almost exactly 24 hours after we left.
And that was that crazy New York day!

OMG!
FINALLY it's out! Even though the story got leaked a little bit too early before the press release was ready it feels great to be able to tell you all: Lights Out is about to become a feature film!

David is directing the movie here in LA for New Line Cinema/Warner bros James Wan is producing, Eric Heisserer is writing the script and it's all very crazy bananas indeed!
I will be in the movie too, in the very beginning, so YAY! Hollywood debut!

Lights Out in theatres 2016, everybody!

And for you who still hasn't seen our short that has made all of this happen (where the hell have you been hiding all this time?) you can watch Lights Out here !

It really is wonderful and surreal to think how a 2.5 minute short that David and I made in our aparment one evening has turned into all of this.
It's bonkers. In the best kind of way.

Oh, so now you know why we're in LA, haha!

/Lotta

Hi!
Oh my! It's been so great to see how people have liked and shared my latest blogpost (Being a woman in a shortfilm gone viral) because I really have been thinking a lot about the topic for quite some time now and that my words actually meant something to more people than myself makes me insanely happy.

One of the most common responses I've gotten regarding my blog post is something like this "you shouldn't listen to those trolls" and while I agree (and probably would have said the same thing just five months ago) I feel like it's a much bigger issue than just ignoring stupid trolls. Because when you read hurtful words about you it's very hard not to feel sad for a while. And if people's only response is "don't listen to that" it only gets worse because what if you actually DO feel kinda sad? Well, then you also feel a bit ashamed of the fact that you can't just shrug it off like all the people around you say you should be able to.
I felt that it was very important to me to write about all this to say that "no, you are not allowed to speak about me this way" and now I feel so much better with myself.

And then, yesterday, I was contacted by a swedish radio station that wanted to talk to me about my text and my experience with all this.
You can listen to the clip here if you want to (it's in swedish though). It was so much fun and I feel like I remembered to say everything I wanted to.

Before I run off to do all the things I need to do before going to work, let me just say this: Thank you so much for all your lovely comments and for sharing my text! It means so much to me, and if it can also mean something to you then I'm just over the moon!


Tjingeling!
Lotta

Hello hello hello!
Time for a Lights Out update because Oh boy things have been happening!
Not only have the film been seen by a crazy amount of people (5.3 million views on our youtube upload, 8.6 million on vimeo and with all the uploads from other people we're talking AT LEAST 16 million views in total) it has also been, and is announced to be, screened at a couple of festivals over the world (Lyon, Edinburgh, Salt Lake City, Telluride among others) but last week we also found out that Lights Out won Best Short film at FANT Bilbao. Such wonderful news!

We were asked to send a Thank you Video for their big closing ceremony and we made a cute little video that I thought you might want to see.

Look how happy we are!
My English sounds quite horrible but I'm blaming it all on giddyness or nerves or the high amount of pollen or an alien invasion or maybe something else entirely.

Hehe, I love the uncoordinated Thank you's in the end. We filmed a couple of more proper ones but this was just too cute to leave out.

That's all for now but I hope you're having at least two things to look forward to this week. It could be the smallest thing, really. I am looking forward to a giant outdoors fleamarket and a picnic. And having the weekend off work. And spring time! And And And...!