Phiphen Overview

Phiphen Pictures is a east coast–based production company, fund, and an in-house post facility in New Jersey. Known for producing award-winning narrative features, Phiphen operates with a hands-on, detail-driven approach from development through post-production.

Challenge

Before engaging Callo, Phiphen Pictures had been working on Horror project for one year trying to attach a director to a feature project based out of the UK/Ireland.

Despite an extensive search for one year prior to Callo, they were seeing no meaningful traction—the available options either lacked creative alignment or logistical feasibility. The project’s timeline was at risk, prevented them to go into the next step of global sales to earn, and the team needed a new approach to find the right fit.

How it Worked

Referred by another company, Phiphen turned to Callo to break through the bottleneck.

Leveraging Callo’s AI-powered matching technology, Callo analyzed the project’s core themes, tone, and production scope to surface directors whose creative vision and past work aligned with the material.

Within days, Callo:

• Identified a highly curated list of 20 qualified directors through its AI-driven discovery engine in seconds.

• Shared tailored director profiles directly with Phiphen for feedback.

• Started outreach to those who had agents and coordinated three initial calls between the project’s lead producer and top director candidates.

The process was collaborative, transparent, and efficient—saving 6 months of manual research and outreach.

“Helped us gather and vet director options from a great pool, ultimately leading us to move forward with one of the directors Callo sourced.”

Results

Through Callo’s involvement, the project transitioned from being stalled to greenlit for next-phase packaging.

Key measurable outcomes included:

• producer-director meetings scheduled within the first two weeks

• AI-driven matching aligned candidates by creative taste, alignment, and logistical feasibility

• Successful director attachment, reigniting project momentum

• Less than 3 month turnaround from engagement to director attachment

“Knowledgeable people representing your project as you intend and helping to alleviate some of the workload.”

Impact

Phiphen’s experience on this project demonstrated how AI-assisted curation can accelerate creative decision-making without compromising artistic intent.

“Given the positive experience on our horror project, we would absolutely work with Callo for future projects in a similar place. And, the total fees are well worth it!”

Callo’s role went far beyond matchmaking—it unlocked a stalled $5M project, directly impacting both creative execution and business viability.

1. Accelerating Sales & Greenlighting
   By securing a credible, aligned director, Callo enabled Phiphen to: Reignite investor and distributor interest, moving the project forward. Advance into the casting and financing stage, revalidating the project’s market value and momentum.
   
   

   
   

2. Reducing Friction Through AI-Powered Discovery & Outreach
   Traditional director searches can take months of manual scouting, cold outreach, and inconsistent feedback loops.
   Callo’s AI-driven outreach compressed this process dramatically by: Identifying top-tier directors aligned with tone, genre, and production scale, filtering for availability, geographic feasibility, and creative synergy, delivering actionable shortlists in days, not months, allowing producers to focus on creative fit rather than logistics.

   
   

3. Driving Operational Efficiency
   With three producer-director calls scheduled within the first two weeks, Callo handled:
   scheduling and introductions, pre-call briefings and background research, structured feedback collection post-meetings, This not only saved valuable production time but freed Phiphen’s team to prioritize development.