Vestal grad starts film streaming service in Brooklyn

• K.C. McLeod graduated from Vestal in 2004 and NYU in 2007.
• McLeod then started Brooklyn-based Vyer Films in 2011.
• Vyer Films was featured in a July article in The New York Times.

As a second-grader, K.C. McLeod told his parents he was going to study film at New York University.

And so he did, graduating in 2007 with a degree in film and television production.

Now, McLeod, a 2004 Vestal High School graduate, is running Vyer Films, a Brooklyn-based film curation and streaming service he launched in 2011. Vyer, unlike other mainstream streaming options, focuses on what McLeod describes as the underseen films from the festival circuit.

Examples include 2009 Finnish drama "Letters to Father Jacob," the 2013 film "Soft in the Head," from Brooklyn director Nathan Silver and 2011 Danish prison drama "R," which New York Times film critic Stephen Holden called "very well made and persuasively acted."

"We don't simply distribute films," said McLeod, 28. "We connect them with audiences."

About 19 percent of U.S. TV households now exist without cable, according to market research firm GfK. In total, GfK estimates that more than 22 million households, representing almost 60 million Americans, get television exclusively through broadcast signals.

Media companies have taken notice, increasingly hunting for business from the growing crowd of American cord-cutters. HBO recently announced it would launch a stand-alone, online streaming version of its service next year. One day later, CBS announced its own subscription service.

In the third quarter this year, Netflix added about a million members in the United States, ending the quarter with more than 37 million members, according to the company's Oct. 15 letter to its shareholders.

Vyer Films works a little bit differently.

Vyer — an indefinite plural of the Norwegian word "vy," meaning perspective, outlook and vision — selects four new films the first of every month. The business has three different subscription tiers.

For $15 a month, subscribers can stream that month's four films. For $20 a month, subscribers get access to new releases each month along with Vyer's entire catalogue. For those who want a long-term subscription, they can pay $99 in advance for six months of service, saving $21 over a month-by-month option.

And business has been growing, McLeod said. Since February, he said, Vyer has been increasing its sales at a rate of 50 percent month over month. The company, which got its start by McLeod cold-calling sales agencies to acquire films while learning to code to build the website, now is a three-person team: In addition to McLeod, Meredith Wade serves as chief marketing officer, and Josh Johnson is head of acquisitions.

A July 5 article in The New York Times titled, "Diving for Treasure in Less Traveled Seas: Offerings From Boutique Streaming Services," gave Vyer its most public exposure to date.

"Vyer proudly uses the word 'curated,' and its small collection of films includes some notoriously challenging work," wrote Times television critic Mike Hale.

"It was a tough compliment perhaps, but a very fair one," McLeod said.

The Times article ran in July, the first month of Vyer Films four-film release model. After the story, McLeod said Vyer has focused on diversifying its monthly selections.

To McLeod's parents, his success in film isn't surprising.

K.C.'s father, Ken McLeod, the entrepreneur in residence at Binghamton University, said his son loved movies from an early age.

"K.C. is from the era of 'The Princess Bride,'" said Ken McLeod, a 60-year-old Vestal resident. "He just loved 'The Princess Bride,' in particular the sword-fighting scene. He and I must have played the sword-fighting scene on the mountain a thousand times."

While the family was living on Long Island, Ken McLeod recalled, K.C. made a documentary about cicadas. He couldn't have been much older than a fourth-grader at the time, Ken McLeod said.

Ken McLeod believes Vyer Films will continue to succeed moving forward because the business found a market. For the over-35 crowd, he said, the films are particularly attractive because they make the viewer think, allowing the movie to stick in their minds long after the credits roll.

The next steps for Vyer, K.C. McLeod said, are expanding into set-top boxes such as Roku, and finalizing partnerships that will further the company's ability to acquire new films.

K.C.'s mother, Suzanne McLeod, superintendent of schools at Union-Endicott Central School District, described herself as a Vyer addict, often watching on her iPad.

Suzanne McLeod, 59, realized K.C. was fascinated by film early on, but was a little taken aback when her son, as a second-grader, predicted he would attend film school at NYU. Regardless, she and her husband were relieved when their son's bold prediction came true about 10 years later.

"We're very proud of him," said Suzanne McLeod, of Vestal. "It's been a great experience watching him progress and build on his education."

Follow Jon Harris on Twitter @PSBJonHarris.

K.C. McLeod, 28

Title: Founder and CEO of Vyer Films.

Born in: Boston.

Lives in: Greenpoint, neighborhood in Brooklyn.

Education: Graduated from Vestal High School in 2004. He then graduated in 2007 from New York University with a degree in film and television production and a minor in history.

Question: How did Vyer Films get started?

Answer: Vyer started in a way that I imagine many other startups do. There was an opportunity to make something meaningful for people who were dissatisfied with the current order of things, and I was uncertain who else was going to do it if I didn't.

Once there was an idea for what the service could be, I figured out what the basic components were needed to build that, and then brute-forced my way through acquiring those. I cold-called a lot of sales agencies to acquire our first films and I taught myself how to code in order to build the site.

Q: What was your inspiration for Vyer Films?

A: The inspiration for Vyer Films came from a holiday party my parents were having. Some middle-aged friends of theirs couldn't stop talking about this wonderful film they had seen, but it was a small little film hardly anyone else saw.

Just a few days later, at a New Year's Eve party in New York City, a young banker was raving about a great foreign film his friend had showed him, and struck me that if a couple up in Vestal and a young banker are talking about these small films they love, perhaps lesser-known movies are more important to audiences than the industry generally acknowledges.

Q: Are you a film lover? If so, what are your favorite films?

A: I am most definitely a film lover. One of my longtime favorite films is Wes Anderson's "Rushmore." A more recent favorite is Joachim Trier's "Oslo, August 31st." But beyond independent and foreign films, I will acknowledge that when I was a kid I most definitely wore out my VHS copy of "E.T."