By Emma Bracken
Fayetteville is home to many creative voices and talents, searching for an outlet to showcase them. San Connie, a senior at the University of Arkansas, has made it his mission to bring them to life through his love for filmmaking. His feature film, “The Space In Between,” premieres on Friday evening, April 19. As the writer, director, producer, and editor of the film, Conine is anticipating not just the payoff for all of the cast’s hard work but the inspiring truth that the movie’s release represents. For him, working from the ground up to make his dream a reality is proof that anyone with creative ambition and enough love for their art can do the same. When combined with a passionate, talented group of people like the cast and crew of “The Space in Between,” the end product is bound to be something meaningful and impressive.
Conine first wrote his ideas for the film when he was just 15 years old, once abandoning them entirely before returning years later to bring them to fruition. Originally from Little Rock, Arkansas, Conine has traveled all around the country in pursuit of his education and filmmaking, collecting friends and creatives along the way that would come to Fayetteville and bring his movie to life. The film amassed a cast and crew of over 100 students from several different universities beyond the UA.
Though the film is being created by students, Conine is aiming for something beyond what you’d expect from a student film. Not only has he culminated a large-scale production beyond expectation, but the community that has emerged from the making of the film also surpasses any class project or small club effort.
“I hope people take us seriously,” Conine said. “It’s not just a student film; we worked harder than anyone else, we cared about each other more than anyone else, and we loved the thing we made more than anyone else. We hope they can see and appreciate the effort of so many incredible people involved in the film.”
The passion and love the entire cast and crew have for the film is bursting at the seams of it all, building anticipation for those of us waiting for the release. They are working tirelessly to polish the film off and celebrate the release this weekend. Filming began just around the new year, and they’ve been putting in long hours and late nights to put it together since. Conine explained that many of the people working on the film had no prior experience at all, but cared so much about the project that things seemed to just fall into place. Everyone was an equally important part of the puzzle, and the crew became less of a staff and more of a family.
“Art is more than it serves financially,” Conine said. “There is education, community, and love to be had.”
Operating on a tight budget and timeline, putting the film together required ingenuity and endless determination. Conine described the film as “scrappy,” with penny-pushing and cutting corners at every step. It was a community effort, with all hands on deck. The support came from even beyond the cast and crew, such as the AirBnB owner who lent them their set, or the gear borrowed from universities. Whatever could be done to bring the dream into a reality was, without hesitation or fear of failure getting in the way. Though the work was hard, everyone left the set after wrap devastated for it to be over.
“We ride until we all fall off,” Conine joked. He thanked Assistant Director Hayden Leonard and business partner/producer Josh Howington for keeping him afloat at the head of such a large project. Getting people who care, he said, was the most important key to their success, and more valuable than any equipment or high-end Hollywood set. The cast of actors, including leads Louis Waddell and Lillie Huffman, were also eager to bring the magic of the movie to life. To Conine, the greatest joy of it all will be to rave to the families and friends of his team about how proud he is of them.
This is what makes the film special, and what the team hopes people take from it after Friday’s premiere. For him and the others working on the film, it has already been a place of love and connection. Even before knowing exactly what the end product would look like, he knew he was proud of the film because of the environment it fostered and the opportunities it created for people to get their first taste at following their dreams in the movie industry. He not only hopes that the audience will be able to feel this through the screen, but will be inspired in their own right, either to make art or meet people.
The World Premiere of “The Space in Between” will be at 7 p.m. on April 19, in theFayetteville High School Auditorium. It is cocktail attire mandatory, and tickets start at $12.50. Not only will you be the first to get to see the film before it hits streaming, but many of the cast and crew members will be in attendance, as well as Conine who will be speaking to the audience about his experience directing the film and maybe even sharing a special announcement with the crowd. He encourages people to find the same connection when seeing the film as they all did making it, whether that means asking someone you’ve always been scared to ask out to tag along with you or flying solo and making a new friend with the person sitting next to you.