Hej!
A while back I was using my Google-fu to try to find some interesting and weird places to explore in the Los Angeles area.
One of the places I happened upon was the Murphy Ranch Nazi Camp, described as a World War II-era enigma hidden in a forest outside of Santa Monica.
The pictures and text I could find about the place made me itch to go there as soon as possible. Yesterday I convinced David we needed a sunday adventure at the Murhy Ranch.

On the site Atlas Obscura they describe it like this Now property of Los Angeles City parks, Murphy Ranch was originally developed to be a self-sustaining compound in the 1930s. It was originally purchased in 1933 by Jessie Murphy -- a person never seen nor documented elsewhere. Despite the phantom owner, the property was developed by Winona and Norman Stephens and a German national by the name of Herr Schmidt. The design implemented was an installation of several buildings, fuel tanks, and multiple massive cisterns. The entire complex, according the plans of Herr Schmidt, was to be self-sustaining even if it suffered years of isolation from the outside society. Schmidt's motivations, however, remain the focus of the lore.

Apparently Herr Schmidt wanted to create a Nazi holdout in America, but in 1941 the ranch is said to have been raided by United States Federal Agents that had kept an eye on Herr Schmidt and his work. The place has been abandoned ever since, with the exception of a few years in the 60's and 70's when artists took over the ranch.

The backstory piqued my interest, but what really made me want to go there was the fact that the only way to reach the ranch was by descending a 500 steps concrete staircase straight down the mountainside.
The pictures I found showed a hidden and secret place, and I was so excited to see it for myself!
We arrived at the start of the hike around 5.30 in the afternoon. It's been so hot in Los Angeles lately so we had to wait until it was starting to cool off a bit, but not too late because we didn't want to get stuck out in the wilderness in the dark.

The light was just perfect and I was already happy that we had came there, even if we weren't to find the stairs.
We met a few people going back down the trail who told us to keep going and the stairs would appear quite clearly maybe a mile ahead.

And there it was. In front of the most beautiful mountain view.

After walking down the stairs for a while David asked "Are we going to be doing this forever, Lotta?" The stairs just kept on going.

It felt like we were explorers in a forgotten world!

I even decided it was worth it to go up and down the stairs a little bit extra for some self timer photos. I didn't know what I was in for later, apparently...

Like a fairytale! Or an adventure movie!

And then we reached the end of the stairs and found the goal of our hike!

I like that among all the usual graffitied penises and swear words someone had written Fuck Hitler (can't be seen in the photo though, if you were trying to find it). To keep the vandalism topical, I guess.
We didn't have time to look around any more than this house, because the light was rapidly getting weaker and we needed to head back to the car before dark.
I plan to return soon though, and bring my real camera! The weather will just have to cool off a bit before though, because I want time to explore this amazing location!

After just a few steps we realized just how exhausting the way up would be. I was breathing so heavy and tried to find a good breathing rhythm to keep me going. Sweat was pouring and we kept chanting about the ice-cream we had decided to buy when we finished the hike.

We had to stop and breathe a couple of times.

LOOK AT ALL THOSE STAIRS BEHIND ME! So sweaty and shaky. Our legs started to feel like spaghetti after a while.

When we finally reached the top the sky looked this wonderful! Like a painting!

Speaking of paintings, isn't this mountain side so beautiful?!
I love the texture and colours.

And another one (I have at least ten more photos like these in my phone).

And over there is Santa Monica in evening light.

Such an awesome adventure! I absolutely love to find places like this and I have already started to search for the next location to explore.
Also, I'm sure that the muscle soreness I'm feeling today is going to remind me of this excursion for at least a couple of days.

That was all for today, I hope you liked to tag along on our hike.
Talk to you soon!

/Lotta

Hej hej!

Today Swedish radio station P3 aired an interview with me for their segment about Swedes abroad (Svensken i Världen, Verkligheten i P3). I talked about the amazing journey it has been, and still is, after Lights Out went viral but I also mentioned the not so great experience of having my looks reviewed by men on the internet.
If you know Swedish you can listen to it here.
It was so much fun to be interviewed about this whole experience and I think it went really well.

And let's take a look at some photos from the two days filming my scenes in Lights Out the other week.

I had a trailer to relax in, just like "real stars". And obviously I had to take silly self portraits to show off my new found Diva status.

Looks familiar?

Being pampered between takes by Hair, Makeup and Wardrobe.

I had a blast filming and really hope this is just the beginning for me. I was quite nervous before shooting because this was the first time I acted in English. It's scary to act in another language than your own, but I think it went well.

This week it's been 38 celsius degrees outside, and that is just way too many celsius degrees for me! On friday we're going to Palm Springs over the weekend (because on monday next week we celebrate our two year wedding anniversary!) and it's supposed to be around 42 celsius degrees there. I'm terrified.
I will be staying in the pool the entire weekend, that's for sure!

Talk to you soon, dear friends and readers.

/Lotta

OMG! I'm the worst blogger ever right now!
It's like time is just running through my fingers and all of a sudden three weeks have gone by.
Sorry for that! But like I told you in my last post I can't talk a lot about what happens on set and since that is about all that is going on in my head right now it's very hard to find things to blog about. Or even get the thought "I need to blog now".
But I realised today I actually DO have things I want to show you about what's going on in my life. So let's do that!

We spent the weekend before shooting started at the production office. We haven't been there since, and I had a feeling it would be long until next time, so I went bananas with the self timer up on the roof. I really like those moments alone exploring, jumping around and running back and forth to set the timer/look at the photo I just took to see if it turned out any good.

David on the first day of filming! Look how cute!

I have been at the set every other day. I come and go as I want to and it feels good to have a couple of days for myself every now and then. When I'm not at the filmset I'm walking around in Burbank where we live and sit at cafés writing. Here's a pine tree lined street close to us that is mysterious and dark usually, but when someone has watered the street at the same time as their gardens, it turns into an even more beautiful scene.
I would get super bored if I would only do one or the other (alone days or hanging out at the set) but now as I can choose to mix it up I really enjoy the days I have on my own.
The movieset is super exciting with lots of people running around doing their thing and I find it so amazing to see David working so surely with experienced actors and film crew. It's such a huge leap to go from making movies just two people in an apartment to making a studiofilm in Hollywood. I'm beyond impressed with how awesome David is in this situation.

A couple of hands I found on a wall that are both cute and extremely spooky at the same time. Baby ghost hands!

When we had only been in LA for a couple of weeks our wonderful neighbours knocked on our door and gave me this shirt. They had found it in a store and had to buy it for me because it happened to have Lights Out written on it.
It has nothing to do with our film but I obviously feel like it's meant to be so I wore it on set and felt like a fangirl all day.

On the first weekend after filming started we switched the production office for the filmset. I found spooky places in the large building and obviously got good use of my gorillapod and self timer. I'm really fond of the light and shadows in this photo. I love using what is around me and this is a perfect example of how to get the surroundings to work in your favour.

And I definitely can't resist a good hallway.

On the last day at the first filming location they filmed some outdoor scenes and it was a lot of work before they could take a break for food. Since I do what I feel like when I'm there I fetched a cup of coffee and went up on the roof for some alone time. It was during golden hour so the light was just beautiful. I took some photos and then I realised I could see what the film crew was up to from my spot above.

Looking down at people who don't know they are being watched...

Then David walked past and I sent him a text that he should look up. When he saw me he came up on the roof too. He had a few minutes to breath (and make out) away from the hustle and bustle of the movieset. It was a perfect moment. One of those you'll remember forever.

The view was kinda amazing.

I have been taking a bunch of outfit photos as well. This one was to show off my new second hand blouse that stops at the waist, covers my shoulders and is made in a cool and breezy fabric.
Talking about clothes, I had my costume fitting for Lights Out last week. Such a cool feeling! And it made everything feel a little bit more real too. I got my visa so that I can work in the film and I have a part and it's just so amazing everything!
I can't wait until it's my turn to get infront of the camera. And I am actually the only one in this production that have been directed by David before this! HA! And I'm not intimidated by Mr Hollywood Director so I'm going to pretend it's just like when we make our horror shorts at home. Nothing more, nothing less (Let's see how that goes).

a self portrait on one of my walks to the closest Starbucks for some coffee and writing.

Last friday at the new filming location. I took a coffee break under some trees in the beautiful garden.

This monday, out walking, finding surroundings that match my outfit.

And yesterday at the filmset. They were shooting one of the most difficult scenes in the movie light wise. There was so much people running around and there was a lot of last minute details that had to be decided.
I love this photo of David all lit up when he's thinking real hard on how to solve a problem, and all those people around him, in the dark.

David (second to the left) and the producers talk through a difficult scene in the dramatic smokey film light.

Just a prop master with a plastic man over his shoulder.

So I hope you liked to see and read a little about what's been going on these past three weeks. My plan is that you won't have to wait as long until my next blog post, but who knows really!
It's probably the strangest time in my life right now and I have sort of decided to not force anything. This entire experience is so far from every day life that we just have to take every day as it comes. It's both scary and exciting, obviously. But I feel strangely calm about everything. But that's the true nature of an adventure, isn't it?
Talk to you soon, okay?!

/Lotta

This blog is turning into a "Self Portraits and Thoughts Blog". Well, if that's how my mind works right now, then so be it!

Today's self portrait is from yesterday when I once again wandered around the Lights Out production office in search of interesting places.
I like how it feels like I'm sitting in an enormous tank or something like that.

Anyways: News!
I thought a little update would be appropriate because you know what? As of tomorrow they start shooting Lights Out!
Yesterday it became official that Teresa Palmer is going to star as the lead in the movie. She's awesome!
Everything is happening so quickly right now and it feels so surreal that it's Actually Happening. Tomorrow. They start shooting tomorrow.
All because David and I made a short film in our apartment. Still can't get it. It's just too much.

The scenes I'm going to be in are the last ones to be filmed, but I will be hanging around the set a lot anyways just because it's so exciting! I mean, a real Hollywood film shoot! AMAZING!
I probably won't be allowed to blog much about it, but I hope I can show you at least some behind the scenes photos. We'll see...

So that was all for now I think.
Oh, one more thing! I'm just so happy to have been here on the day when same sex marriages were made legal in the entire United States of America. I have been crying so many happy tears this weekend.
21 countries of the world have marriage equality now. Many more need to get behind this, because Love is just Love. And everyone should be allowed to express it freely, no matter of sexual orientation. Love wins. Always.