Emily Tonnu, a Westview alumni 2020 graduate and senior film major at San Diego State University carefully watched the monitor in the Westview stadium from her director’s chair, March 17. One Westview student, Juliet Kim (10) stood alongside her friends on the football field in a cap and gown and adorned with colorful leis, but Kim wasn’t receiving her diploma.

Rather than smiling at a cheering crowd, she stood behind actors for Tonnu’s film. Kim and her classmates in the Digital Media Production (DMP) class acted as extras in the thesis film, “Dissonance,” directed by Tonnu. The real set had far more equipment and stations than the sets made by Westview DMP students in the classroom. Kim said she enjoyed having a role as an extra, acting as if she were graduating from high school. 

“It was a really cool experience just being on set because I’ve never been on the set of anything real before,” Kim said. “We had to mouth like we were talking because the actors were talking and we didn’t want to interfere, but it was really fun.”

For four hours on that Saturday evening, the team of college and high school students rehearsed and shot graduation scenes several times to fit into “Dissonance,” Tonnu’s thesis film that she started in December to complete the highest level Television, Film, and New Media production class at San Diego State University. She hopes to finish the movie by May 7 to be showcased in film festivals around San Diego. 

“It’s been a long process,” Tonnu said. “Months of just writing drafts and creating the pitch deck for when we were to present it to our classmates to turn it into the movie that it’s now becoming. I think that it is a good story and it’s something that should be seen by people.”

“Dissonance” follows the relationship between two Asian-American siblings who, through shared experiences, culture, and love for music, learn to love each other. Tonnu said that many of her experiences as an Asian-American sibling are reflected in the writing of the movie.

“I would say that there are bits and pieces of my life scattered throughout the film, but overall, [my team and I] believe it to be a universal tale of sibling relationships in general,” she said. “We thought that the title, ‘Dissonance’ encapsulated both the relationship and also the musical nature of the film itself. Representation is a big driving force behind what I do and why I do it. The goal now is to send it out, boost it, and get as many eyes on it as we can.”

Like Kim, Tonnu also took multiple DMP classes at Westview. 

She said that her time in Rob Casas’ DMP classes inspired her to pursue a film major in college. Recently, she reached out again to Casas to collaborate with his current DMP 3-4 class, including Kim, to make her vision for her final college film a reality.

“I reached out and asked if it was possible for me to come back and film what I needed for the project, and [Casas] was thankfully open to the idea and really helped us out,” Tonnu said. “We had been in contact with a lot of the [Westview] staff, and they were super helpful and very generous with what we were allowed to do on campus, and I’m super grateful for that. It was fun to be back.”

Kim said that her involvement with Tonnu’s film inspired her to take more opportunities to explore film writing and video production.

“It opened my eyes to what a real-life set would look like,” Kim said. “And if I want to pursue media production, I know more about what types of jobs I could have on set and the flow of things. It made me think a little bit deeper about what I want to do in the future.”

Tonnu said she feels very grateful for Westview’s Digital Media Production classes, which guided her to choose her film major at San Diego State University and create the project “Dissonance” now. 

“In high school, I didn’t really know what I wanted to do in college,” Tonnu said. “I always knew that film, TV, and media felt comfortable to me and were just something that felt right. But I never really pursued it, and that [Digital Media Production] class gave me the opportunity to explore that route and find the passion that I have now for film.”