A blank piece of paper is one of the most frightening things for any creative. It screams possibility and dreams but provides no structure or grounds to base your next masterpiece on. This weekend I have been handed a blank piece of paper.

For the first time in months, maybe even a year, I have a weekend where I have no plans. I have nothing that requires my immediate attention, nothing that demands my presence, I’m just waiting around and killing time before my hectic week. TinyGrab’s been set on auto-pilot, my friends and loved ones are all busying themselves and my current financial restraints stop me from doing anything impulsive or going somewhere. In short I now have to entertain myself for an entire weekend. This is a scary proposition for someone who hasn’t really rested or stopped in years. I’m always working on that next big project, but now I have silence. Upon suggestion of my good friend Alex Hill, I’m taking on the task of creating a short film over the weekend; something that I can be proud of and place in my portfolio.

I haven’t been creative in the video space for such a long time. The last time I really got my teeth into filming and producing content was when Vueo was still around and even then I felt too much like a corporate shill, I wasn’t being creative. This weekend I hope to change all of that and make something that I can truly be proud of.

Staring at this blank piece of paper before me I have no clue what’s going to spring from my mind, all I know is this; I have one weekend, no crew, no actors, no budget and a blank piece of paper. Let’s see what I can do.

Chris Leydon.

Admitting failure is never easy, especially when you’ve ignored all sound advice, thrown caution into the wind and attempted the impossible without so much as a second thought. We all encounter failure everyday in our lives and not accepting it, or appreciating it, is a dangerous mistake to make. Those who do not recognise failure are poetically doomed to fail.

A few months ago I wrote a post about sticking through with my ideas and projects. I highlighted that I have often had a few half baked ideas and projects that have never come to fruition, but with Vueo I was determined to break that trend.

Vueo was more than just a company, it was a concept, it was supposed to be the blueprint of new media channels for the next five years. It was supposed to help revolutionise the way we consume and produce our media. To some extent Vueo still is some of those things, however at the end of March the decision was taken to close down Vueo Ltd and liquidate it. This process is still on going but Vueo has ended.

Vueo’s inevitable closure is not an admission saying that the online television channel format doesn’t work. I still have full faith in it. Instead I’m admitting that as far as Vueo is concerned we got way in over our heads and that our business model wasn’t quite right. Where Vueo was concerned we attempted to launch with 5 fully produced and permanent programmes. The idea was to have 5 brand new episodes a week of fresh and interesting content, with a team of 3 this was near impossible. Despite having pre-recorded content months in advance and having a lot in our backlog, we just couldn’t meet the turn around time. The stress of Vueo emotionally drained us all and took me, personally, to the point of a nervous breakdown. Trying to run TinyGrab at the same time and work on the 2.0 release, as well as Vueo and my degree, was just too much for my system to handle and something had to give.

This is a blog post that I started many months ago (back in March actually) I just haven’t been able to bring myself to finish it off, until now. The recent release of new technology makes Vueo’s closure even more upsetting, mainly due to the dream of independent channel content being able to come true. I still own the rights to the brand and some of the shows, so there is still some hope that sometime in the future I may be able to work on a relaunch. This will only be when I can find a financially viable model to support it though, my personal finances are dire and I can’t afford a loss leader.

So many things have changed since September, so many things have changed since I wrote my original blog post on Vueo. I have grown in so many ways and developed even further as a business man and content creator. Thank you to all of the supporters I’ve had during these past few trying months. Sorry for the tears, the fights, the breakups and the immaturity that has been expressed at times. Vueo really was my baby and I baby I was with it.

Chris Leydon.

I guess it’s fair to say that I’ve had my fair share of pet projects. Some I’ve seen through to the end, some I stick with and some lay in the category of half baked ideas.

Towards the end of April myself and two friends got together and had a friendly discussion. This talk would change all of our plans for the following year, completely. We’d finished our last exam and were talking about what each of us would like to do for the next year. I attend Staffordshire University and after your second year of studies you’re given several options as to what to do for your third year. Everyone is given the option to continue straight away with their degree, or they could take a year off to go on a work placement. There is a third option, however. Students are given the opportunity to pitch viable business ideas to a University board. Those who are successful are given a £3,000 grant and an office on the University’s Business Village. These scheme is called Speed. After many drinks and endless hours of talking myself and my two friends had decided to apply for the Speed scheme together. We just needed an idea.

Ever since my time working for Mevio, as their intern, I’ve always been fascinated with the idea of creating my own online video network. I suggested the idea of creating an online video network to my two partners (Hannah and Gemma), who after a few hours seem to love the idea. We’re all creative film makers at heart so the dream of owning our own channel, where our own content was published, sounded like a dream come true. We pitched the concept to the Speed panel and we were awarded a place on the scheme.

Vueo is the name of the forthcoming online video entertainment channel, aimed at UK students, which is owned and operated by Vueo Ltd. The idea behind Vueo is to have 5 stable shows. All of these shows shall be internally produced and constantly in production. Vueo aims to be pretty much like a standard television channel, but with a twist. New content shall appear every day of the week and we have a schedule. Every Monday there’ll be a new episode of the Travel show, Tuesday the Challenge show, Wednesday the music show etc… However you can decided which order you watch these shows in. You can watch them in the set schedule, or pick and mix your favourite bits. We’re also allowing access to the full archive of shows. Once a show has been aired it will always be around and available for viewing / download. Essentially Vueo is the independent UK student equivalent to the BBC’s iPlayer. This is the video on demand dream that I’ve been preaching for the past year and thinking about for even longer.

Due to various non-dsiclosure agreements that’s all I can say about Vueo for now. Launching in February 2010, Vueo is set to become a prime place to get your fresh creative video content.

Chris Leydon.