We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Sarey Martin Concepción. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Sarey below.

Sarey, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Can you talk to us about how you learned to do what you do?

If you’re serious about any craft, you’re always learning and growing – and the best way to learn media production is by doing it (with help from friends and “YouTube university”). But psychological blocks can get in the way of learning. You have to balance confidence and pride in what you’ve learned so far, and humility about what you don’t know. For me, my lack of knowledge about the technical/gear side of filmmaking makes me feel disadvantaged. But I’m learning that if I’m clear about my creative vision and storytelling choices, there are a ton of people who are ready to worry about the technical aspects. Feeling embarrassed about not knowing more will limit what you’re capable of doing.

I’m also learning a lot about fundraising right now, which is part of the job for a lot of creatives. I had a lot of fear about the process of raising $15K for my next short film and thought it would be grueling! But I raised the money in just over two weeks, and am now working on $10K for post-production. I had to get to a place psychologically where I (1) really believed in what I was making, and (2) was okay with “taking up space” by asking for support.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

When I was in college, I uploaded my resume to a website to try to get an internship in entertainment – I wanted to work in music or film. Someone called me a few days later and said “Hey, do you want to work for Madonna?” I ended up being an intern for a bunch of producers at Maverick Films, a company Madonna owned. I never met Madonna, but I was told I picked up a soy latte for her once. I was 19. The relationships I made there led to the next gig, which led to the next thing, which led to…

…An almost 11-year stint working in talent management, looking after rock bands and making horror films. Rob Zombie was one of our main clients, but I also worked with DEVO, Axl Rose, Jurassic 5, Beware of Darkness, and many others. I got to be involved with Rob’s music and film careers. This is where filmmaking came to the forefront for me. I ended up leaving the industry after a wild decade to produce content for a company in the nonprofit world, and to have more time to work on my own projects. I also went to seminary for a master’s degree.

Supporting artists (of all types) to realize their vision for their careers has always been a joy for me. But I spent a long time doing this while neglecting my own dreams. It’s easier to support others than to believe in yourself, and for me, it can become a fancy way to procrastinate. Ultimately, I’d like to do a mixture of my own projects and supporting other artists.

This year, I’ve been focusing on communicating my brand values through both my own podcast and my fundraising campaign – the brand is called Secret Art Project. We want to create opportunities for human connections, while making art that explores unconventional beauty and metaphysical questions, often utilizing genre-bending conventions in our storytelling.

How did you build your audience on social media?

I used to think I had to have a huge following on social media in order to successfully raise support for a project. What I think now, after a super successful crowdfunding campaign, is that a social media following is overrated, and the personal contact list/email list is underrated.

I don’t have advice for just building numbers. I’m all about that happening organically. If you have a specific call to action, you don’t just want numbers, you want *engaged* followers. Activate everyone you know by messaging them directly and telling them a (concise) story about the project you’re passionate about. The goal is not to get them as passionate about the project as you are (accept that you will always be your project’s biggest champion). The goal is to get them invested in *your* story, and want you to succeed.

Be a human, and treat other people like humans when you talk to them (not just a means of getting what you want).

Use social media to tell your story. Don’t make every post a “sell”. Come up with content ideas that go along with your key values and themes you’re all about.

The crowdfunding platform I worked with, Seed & Spark, taught me that 1-2% of the audience of a social media post will convert to an actual donation. But 20-30% of an email audience will. So from a marketing perspective, email is a lot more powerful.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

I love applying for things – grants, labs, fellowships, etc. These competitions give me deadlines and a reason to get my ducks in a row. I never hold my breath that they’ll happen, but each rejection stings at least a little. But I’m learning to turn rejection into motivation…

At the end of ’21, I’d been a finalist for Disney’s Launchpad Program, which really was a roller coaster of emotions. It gave me clarity about how much I wanted to be a director, but coming close and not getting it was hard. And after letting it catapult me into a pit for a while, I came out with an idea for my next movie. It was about a winemaker, hiding her alien identity. I started doing research and movie this idea forward, but I felt like I was walking through sludge.

A year later, in Nov ’22, I applied for two opportunities that felt really good to work on. One was a PRX and the other was for Nickelodeon. On two days, in early December, I got rejections from both. The night after the 2nd rejection, I was laying in bed and started meditating. I was trying to get out of my head and into my gut about my next move and if I should let the rejection define me in any way. Very suddenly, I knew I was going to launch a fundraising campaign and a podcast on the same day in mid-January. I knew that I needed to stop waiting for someone to give me permission, and just grab hold of what I had control of to make my own way.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.secretartproject.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/secretartprojects
• Facebook: facebook.com/secretartprojects
• Twitter: twitter.com/sarey
• Other: https://seedandspark.com/fund/the-winemaker