Why did you decide to tell this specific story "The Bet”?

It's a good question actually. I think every filmmaker has a lot to say about childhood, or family- We are all kids deep inside. Plus I really want to tell a story that I think my mother will love and understand. So this one-location film idea came to me, when I got interested in telling something about a problematic dad and son. Also water is something coming to my mind, and it is a really good visual element for story-telling. And then I started to put all together and build the plot.

When we see your film, it's amazing! We're sure it was quite difficult to reach this level of cinematic short, not only in story and acting but also in directing. Can you share how you started and finished this film, what were some of the challenges you encountered while filming and how did you overcome them?

It all started with looking for the location- the pool! It was a tough process. It's really hard to find that community pool in my mind.

Most pools I went to either rejected me with tough rules, or didn't fit the picture in my mind. It was late spring and early summer,

and most pools were occupied. I'll say my producer Tevin and I scouted almost 90% of the pools in the bay area, spending almost four

months just for this specific pool. Finally when I almost lost hope, I got to know from my PD that a friend of her was lifeguarding

in a swimming school, and there was a pool that may fit my need. Luckily that’s the one! The boss was kind and didn’t charge

a lot for filming there. I never thought finding a proper pool was that hard when I wrote the script.

The other big issue is to film near water, and deal with background actors and actresses. It really slow down the production, the water

could also be dangerous for the production, whether for cameras or for crew's safety. So we did rent an underwater house for the camera,

and some protective grips for shots near water, and we minimized the use of electricity, but take more use of lighting grips to shape

and reflect light . Of course, I did hire a safe guard for production and for kids. It did slow down the process, and I filmed it in almost four days, rather than three days as firstly planed. And my assistant director who did a great job was almost out of mind under that stress.

It all went smooth later, since we saved some money on transportation, so that money were used to book longer time for actors and locations.