When We Leave
Streaming services nowadays provide audiences with such a vast amount of content that it makes it nearly impossible to decide what to watch. We spend more time browsing catalogues than we do watching films or television series. And so many contemporary subscription services only offer Hollywood clichés and box office regulars, making it even harder to see anything worth watching.
Well, not anymore. Vyer Films is the latest: a Brooklyn-based subscription service with a difference. Instead of infinite amounts of films and television series, Vyer Films prides itself on being a curatorial service, and does the hard work for you. They’re dedicated to providing an exclusive collection of films for people who are looking to steer away from the mainstream and watch critically curated films that tell unique, powerful, and engaging stories. Vyer Films helps “people to spend their time seeing things not looking for things to see.” So to find out more about this cutting-edge service, I sat down with founder K.C. McLeod from Vyer Films.
Claire Williams: Briefly introduce Vyer Films and how it came about.
K.C. McLeod: Vyer, as an idea, started a few years ago at this point. I originally worked in the film production industry, working for producers and directors; but I went to film school and I had a few different friends who were starting to make films, but they were having problems because it’s a difficult kind of endeavor. And what seemed to be the issue was this whole question of how do you raise money for something that seems like a gamble? There’s no guaranteed internal investment or anything like that so if there’s any way to develop some structure around the financing; can you make any of the elements more regular? And after fussing with a few different models what it really came down to was seeing: is there a way to create a place where there’s a consistent audience or a place where people would continue to come back to see quality films? And in turn people that were making films that were of quality could utilize that distribution outlet in a way that they kind of had a built-in audience that we were trying to build.
CW: Has it expanded from there already?
KCM: Initially, I was looking at it from the perspective of my friends as filmmakers and how it would suit them and then really once we started working on it I was really blown away by how you start talking about, I want to make this distribution service or something like that, that people would say that sounds great because everyone had the same story of we sign in and spend half an hour browsing and looking for something good to watch. And so very quickly our focus adjusted and expanded to that idea of what it means to be a curatorial service. And that’s really what we focus on: how do we connect people to the incredible films that are out there, the incredible stories that are being told out there, that otherwise they would not be aware of or have the ability to access? And at the same time, of course, allowing filmmakers to benefit from that connection that’s been made between their films and audiences.
CW: How do you decide which films to feature?
Leones
KCM: Well, we live in an age where we’re very fortunate that if there’s a festival happening or films playing there are going to be journalists, be it for large institutions or independent journalist entities throughout, writing about films. Covering them and offering opinions on films that otherwise you might not be paying a lot of attention to. And so what we do is look at a mixture of what’s out there or what’s playing the festival circuit. There’s a huge amount of material that’s being produced and so film festivals and the curators there are really the front lines of turning ten thousand films into one thousand films and then we kind of come in from that perspective to say right, what are people really excited about or what are people saying interesting things about? And then it becomes more of feeling out what films might be liked even if people aren’t liking them necessarily, like the language people are using to describe them might not mean that they were right for them as an audience member but they might be something that we’re interested in. And then, of course, there’s a lot of reaching out to filmmakers or production companies and getting screeners and taking a look at those films and deciding internally what truly is right for us. The decision of whether or not the film is the right fit for us actually opens up to the whole team because not everyone may respond to a film but what we’re looking for is to offer diverse experiences.
CW: Briefly talk me through the look and feel of the online design of Vyer Films and how that came about?
KCM: The design all came out of the idea of being a curatorial service, presenting audiences with films that they might not be familiar with or might not be initially the most comfortable with and so the overall design of the site is, I guess it’s very trendy now, but a lot of white, a lot of space really so that it can be this blank slate that we can present any kind of film on, in shape of an experience that’s indicative of what the film could be for them. So removing any branding, almost, from the site so that it’s really about allowing the audience to engage with the films and the materials we’re presenting with the films. That’s really the overarching idea of everything that we’re trying to do in terms of the aesthetic of the experience.
CW: How do you catalogue films on Vyer Films?
KCM: That’s something we’re always looking towards: what is the best way to really guide people to things? We’re certainly used to services that are centred around searching and we always talk about that, you can only search for things you know exist and so when you don’t necessarily know the films in our catalogue or you don’t know what genres they might be or you don’t know the actors in them, searching very quickly becomes a tool that’s not very helpful. And so the way we’ve organized our catalogue is chronological by default, but the idea of it being these large images that are indicative of what the films might encompass and those themes and those ideas, those keywords to films that allow people to think very quickly, this film looks interesting to me or this film doesn’t look interesting to me, without weighing them down with too much information that interferes with their ability to make a decision of what they want to watch.
CW: How do your volumes work? Explain the “Optimistic,” “Pessimistic,” “Emotional,” and “Intellectual” tabs and the “Out of Print.”
KCM: An extension of our catalogue is why we have the volumes. It’s more about breaking the catalogue up into portions that our audience can handle all at once. A manageable size so you can remember what you started looking at, unlike the endless scroll that exists on other services. On top of that, then, as our catalogue started to expand we added this idea of “Optimistic,” “Pessimistic,” “Emotional,” and “Intellectual” as a way of giving people the ability to steer a little bit towards knowing what they can expect for this section and trusting Vyer Films. With the Out of Print, those are films that were released in a previous incarnation of Vyer, but we left it up there because, over time, one of the difficult things to deal with as a curatorial service is that you do have to make the decision, are we offering too much? If we have too broad of a catalogue that starts to interfere with the philosophy of helping people spend their time seeing things, not looking for things to see and so that’s there as almost as an indicator that over time, things might disappear and you need to kind of accept that. Granted, since we started we haven’t had to retire any films yet and we’ll give our audience significant notice when we are going to be doing that; but in a way this is almost just an embrace of the fact that throughout the history of film, things disappear. Whether it’s paperbacks or records, things disappear and that’s something we want to have as a part of our service.
CW: What audience does Vyer Films target?
KCM: The audience that we continue to return to and try to appeal to are people who have really just started aging out of the Hollywood target demographic. So people who are in their late twenties, thirties, and forties who are starting to have careers that they take very seriously and their time is limited and so when it comes time to use that limited amount of freedom to see something, we want to be there for them as a reliable source of seeing something of quality. Although the usage that we see is really all over the map, we see kids in film school really like what we’re doing and we’ve had some much older audiences writing in as well.
CW: Unlike most streaming systems, Vyer Films offers various payments options; do you think this sets you apart from competitors?
KCM: For a long time we offered either just a one-size-fits-all subscription or you could rent a movie one-off. But we found that people were always more interested in the different titles that we had and we were also getting feedback about the prices and so we thought, what if we tried to create tiered prices that would really appeal to all of them? Then also the six-month plan was really because we had people saying they loved what we were doing and had signed up already hoping we were around for years to come. So we thought if those people know what they want we should create a plan that rewards them from the get-go. So it came from listening to what our customers were asking for but then also making sure we could be something that really rewards the people that were placing a lot of faith in us.
CW: Why do you think that these independent films may not receive as much attention compared to other films, even though they may appear in the same festivals?
Letters to Father Jacob
KCM: I think that we live in a time where there’s a lot of everything out there. And so I think we look towards filters that can cut down on the amount of information that we have to engage with. If we engage with every discrete piece of information, we’re going to be worn out by the end of the day and so we look towards indicators that can make the decision for us. So when you see Iron Man, you think, oh I read the comics as a kid, that sounds great, I’ll go see that. The decision is made for you. You don’t have to read any reviews, you don’t have to think about who’s in it, you don’t have to do any of those things because there’s this shortcut towards the decision-making process. So I think that what we’re seeing now with all these reboots and sequels and things like that, people like to say that studios are creatively bankrupt and I don’t think that’s necessarily the case. I think everyone’s looking for how will people know what we’re selling? Or how do people know that they want to see this because they don’t have time to read a review on every film that’s going to come out? And with these independent films, they either struggle or succeed depending on what indicators, filters, or brands are attached to them. So when you don’t have all these [actors’] names attached to your film, you have a lot harder sell to try and get anyone to see it. But I have faith in people, I’m an optimist, I believe that people want to see difficult, engaging, or different kind of films but they have to know about them and you have to persuade them that it’s worthwhile going to see them; and without those indicators, shortcuts, or branding it’s very difficult for them to be aware of these films. And that’s one of the things we’re hoping to do, by bringing them all under the mantle of Vyer Films, that that’s your go-to source and you can trust that and you don’t have to worry about reading the reviews.
CW: Is it your mission to make more people aware of these films?
KCM: I think it’s our mission to be one of those filters. I would love to live in a future where there were different Vyers, different companies and people with different kinds of tastes going out there and creating these packages of films, music, books, news stories, everything that is really based around information so that you can find the things that you’re looking for. But also so that when you’re ready for something different or ready to be challenged, you can also go the opposite direction and find something that’s different to what you’re used to. But right now, you don’t really see people doing things like that so it makes it easy for us to say our goal is to be a place where people can come to have new and different experiences.
CW: What do you hope the future for Vyer Films holds?
Bal
KCM: I think one of the most rewarding things anyone can experience is just meeting with the people and relaying a really great story and having people respond to that and ask you more or laugh at the right parts or empathize at the right moments. And we tell stories about movies we see, books we read but also trips that we’ve gone on or just funny things that have happened to us. So I think if we could be a place that could help people have the experiences that they can then turn around and have those stories to tell, that their friends will respond to, which are always unique stories and experiences that people want to talk about. That’s really what I hope the future is, whether it be just in film or if it will involve experiences no one’s really paying attention to yet; but to really provide people with stories they really want to tell, that’s the goal in the long term.
Author Biography
Claire Williams is a film and television studies graduate, now working as a producer for a production company based on the south coast of the United Kingdom. In her free time she dedicates herself to writing for various film magazines and continues to cultivate her love of cinema.
For more information about Vyer Films — or to start a subscription — please visit: http://www.vyerfilms.com/
