FilmScorecard help

Guides for the people who use FilmScorecard: festival hosts and coordinators, judges, and filmmakers who sent in a submission.

One guide per task. Start with the one that matches what you are trying to do.

Getting into your account

• Requesting beta access — sign-up is in a private beta: the three registration forms, one each at the foot of the Festivals, Judges and Creators pages, and how the page you register on decides what your account is, which address your account is created on, the box that agrees to the Terms and the Privacy Policy, the emails it sends, and what to do while you wait.
• Logging in — the emailed 6-digit code, why there is no Continue with Google at the moment, and logging out.
• Creating an account — the sign-up screens, the beta list and the refusal you get without it, why an approved beta account does not need either screen, the four ways around the beta — an invitation, the Apply link on a festival's public page, a submission's own access code, and Keep it on a scorecard — the agreement box every sign-up screen carries, judge accounts, host accounts, filmmaker accounts, and what choosing a role actually does.
• Log-in problems — every message the log-in and sign-up screens can show, in plain language, and what to do about each one.
• Your account menu — the block behind your name in the top-right corner of every festival screen: what it shows, which rows work, the Your projects row, and signing out.
• Your account settings — for anybody who helps run a festival: the three-tab screen behind Your profile in that menu. Your name and photo, changing the address you sign in with, every device you are signed in on, the AI apps you have connected and revoking one, and the seven notification emails that actually reach you, each saved as you tick it.
• Working in two organizations — for anybody who runs their own festival and helps somebody else run theirs: the Organizations group in your account menu, where each row takes you, which organization you land in when you log in, owning more than one organization, and what is kept separately on each side.

Running a festival

• Setting up your festival — the creation form field by field, the organization name it fills in from your own beta request, how your organization is created along the way, the Festival Host Agreement box you tick to create one, the three shared scorecards — and nothing else — a new organization starts with, and why an account needs an approved host request before it can create an organization — and Request host access, if yours has not had one.
• Adding a festival — every festival after the first one: where the Add festival entries are, who may use them, which organization the new festival lands in, the form field by field — now the whole identity: the description, the FilmFreeway link, the logo and the first season's final submission deadline — which of its fields land on the first season rather than the festival, what is created with it, and the first season starting in your browser's time zone rather than UTC.
• Finishing setup — a season before judging opens: the Welcome page you land on after creating a festival, getting categories onto a season that has none — importing in your library, then attaching, the Finish setting up strip and its three required steps, the three rows that block nothing, collapsing the strip and dismissing it for good.
• Opening judging — the three requirements — submissions imported, judging dates set, payouts connected — the two warnings under them, about judges your roster could never supply and films on hold, which never stop you, what pressing the button changes and what it deliberately does not, every refusal it can give — including the one that waits on an owner agreeing to the Festival Host Agreement — and why there is no way to un-open.
• Your organization's Overview — the home page you land on when you can open two or more festivals: every festival with a season underway on one page — the header and the Festivals control, Work waiting with its six groups and fourteen kinds of work and where each one links, Next two weeks and Later in the season, Updates, and the Festivals table with its phase, health, progress and next date — searching, filtering and sorting it, the view kept in the address, the changed-since dots, Mark all seen and Undo, and who sees which work. Nothing is released, approved or paid from it.
• The Season overview — the season's dashboard in every state: the banner that says when judging has not opened or its opening date has passed without it, the attention queues — with the two judging warnings among them while judging is open, and a reminder to owners and org admins to add your organization's mailing address — judging progress and judge completion — now measured against every category a film competes in — submissions by category and status, revenue — with your processing share on a line of its own — and who is allowed to see it, the two CSV exports, and the import history with its rollback hand-off.
• Festival settings — the nine-tab settings screen: every setting as a row with a sentence saying what it does, one Save changes bar per tab, and cards that fold away; Festival — your festival's name, address, website and logo, the Public festival page switch with its page link, and the FilmFreeway link; FilmFreeway — the connection, now a tab of its own after Categories, with no save bar; Season — the season's name, year, description, location and contact email, and every date it keeps, with its time zone and the judging dates, with Close judging now; Judging — the scoring rules, Judges per category, whether creative judging waits for each film's technical approval and the open judge call; Results — the five schedules scorecards can open on and whether a press kit keeps its score as judged once judging closes; Emails — when the two automatic emails go, and a promo code for the automatic Scorecard ready email; and what a new season starts on.
• Emails your festival sends — every email FilmScorecard sends for your festival, who gets it and what sends it, which two have settings on Settings → Emails, and the preview.
• The public festival page — your festival's own public page, the link you send judges: turning it on, its address and what happens when that changes, what visitors see on each tab and card, which season it shows, editing it in place — now including the festival's name, address and FilmFreeway link, and the judge call's dates, prices, apply-by date and coordinator address — the Show on page switches, which fields are the same ones Settings edits, what a save needs — images, sharing it and its link preview, who can edit it, and how somebody with no account applies to judge from it.
• How scoring works — how scorecards become one score out of 100: the three weights, the creative panel, one film worked through from first card to last, and how to set it up for the way your festival already judges.
• A season's categories and awards — attaching library categories and awards to one season, entry fees and add-on prices, why every category is also an award, and why some of them cannot be detached.
• Judge pay — the two rates every category carries, the season-wide Paid or Volunteer setting and why it is a ceiling rather than a rule, what locks it at Paid, the $0.00 warning, Reset pay to library, and what a filed scorecard records. These are also the prices an open-call applicant is quoted. What an individual judge is offered starts here and is settled in What an invitation pays; what they are then owed is tracked in Paying your judges.
• Season and festival actions — starting next season from this one — and which of the public page's season details it carries — archiving a finished season, when Archive is greyed — only while judging is actually open, so a season nobody has opened can be archived whatever its dates say — and deleting a festival for good, which a festival judges have already scored refuses.
• The season a festival opens on — the star in the season switcher: choosing which season a festival opens on instead of its newest, who may set it, what happens when that season is archived, and the one route that still opens the newest.
• Categories and scorecards — managing your organization's library: creating, editing, duplicating and archiving categories, attaching scorecards, the two default pay columns, and which categories are missing scorecards or cannot be judged.
• Award categories — the library's middle tab: writing the awards your festivals can offer, choosing which submission categories may enter each one, and archiving, restoring and duplicating them.
• Importing from the default list — FilmScorecard's ready-made 73 categories and 28 awards, and taking what you want of them: the Import from default list button in your library, the presets an owner sees on an empty library tab, the link back to the season you came from, and the FilmFreeway import's third group. What each import brings — a category's own creative scorecard, your technical and press kit scorecards, its default judge pay, an award's eligible categories — what counts as already in your library, how categories imported later fill in awards imported earlier, and every award on the list with the categories it takes.
• What a new festival starts with — the DEFAULT tag on your library rows: choosing the categories and awards every festival you create is born with, the three ways to change it, and the three things it deliberately does not touch.
• Building a scorecard — writing what a judge is asked or a reviewer checks: questions and response types, points, the two written-feedback switches, which decide what judges are asked to write and what the filmmaker reads, reordering, the two ways changes are saved, and press kit items in their two kinds — the ones that watch a field on the submission and fill themselves in, and the ones a coordinator still marks by hand.
• Your festivals list — the Festivals section at the bottom of the left navigation on your organization's screens: opening a festival from it, the amber number beside each festival and what it counts, putting it in the order you want, and where that order is kept.

Your organization and the people in it

• Organization settings — the six-tab screen behind Organization settings in the left navigation: your People list, the three organization roles, making somebody who owns another organization an owner of yours too, suspending and removing somebody, your organization's own name, support address and the mailing address its offer emails carry, your payout account, and the record of every access change.
• Connecting payouts — the Payments tab: the one Stripe account your whole organization is paid into. The five states of the card and what each one wants from you, why "Action needed" and "Payouts paused" mean different things, setting the account up on Stripe, the platform fee line — the rate, whether it is taken on what each order pays or on the full price, its $2.00 minimum, and your share of Stripe's processing fee — why only the owner can act, the amber banner a season's dashboard can show, disconnecting the account to switch to another Stripe account, and the security email every owner and org admin gets when it is disconnected or connected.
• Orders — the Orders row in the left navigation, for owners and org admins only: every scorecard unlock across all your festivals, one row each — paid, comped, free and refunded — the six figures over whatever you have filtered and what each one adds up, the Processing column beside the platform fee, searching and filtering by festival, season, date and status, the order panel and what a promo code adds to it, resending a receipt or a fresh access code and what each one changes, the CSV, and why there is no refund button.
• Promo codes — the Promo codes row directly under Orders, for owners and org admins only: your organization's own discount codes for the scorecard unlock. What a code does at checkout — percent off or amount off, applied to each category at its own price, in the seasons it covers, and never below the platform fee and your processing share — how deep your fee terms let a code go, Free unlock codes, which make a scorecard free where FilmScorecard has allowed your organization them, the list and its six statuses, creating and editing a code, why its code and discount lock after the first order, pausing, ending and duplicating, emailing a code to the filmmakers who could use it — who it reaches, what the email says and the mailing address it needs — how uses are counted, and what a code costs you.
• Inviting people — inviting the people who run your festivals by email, choosing what they may reach before they arrive, and the Pending invitations tab: expiring, resending, and sends that failed.
• Festival access — the panel behind a person's name: which festivals somebody reaches, the four festival roles, the capability matrix, and how much of it FilmScorecard enforces today — including who may change a season's judges and who may email submission links.
• When your organization is suspended — the one-line notice every screen of a suspended organization shows the people who work there, where logging in takes you instead, what your judges and filmmakers meet in the meantime, what waits until it is lifted, and what comes back when it is.

Getting submissions into a season

• Importing submissions — the four steps that turn a CSV export into your submission list: choosing the file, saying which column holds what, matching its categories to yours — or to FilmScorecard's default list — and checking every row before anything is written. What a FilmFreeway export now brings in — personal details, technical specs, background and the entry's own record, all staff-only — how Judging Status sets the selection, whether the batch's new films arrive Ready for judging or On hold, and what is still left out.
• Mapping your file's columns — step 2 in full: the screen every import now answers, why only Project title is required, how FilmScorecard works out a column from its name or its values, the fields matched by name only and the two worked out from another column, moving a column from one field to another, joining two columns into one, the columns no field uses and are therefore not imported, and saving a mapping as a template your whole festival shares.
• Imports — the screen you land on afterwards: watching an import run, cancelling, stopping and retrying, the record of every batch, rolling one back within 30 days, and the batches a rollback refuses — one judges have started scoring among them — and why no FilmFreeway sync row rolls back there: the syncs are undone together, from Settings → FilmFreeway.
• Connecting FilmFreeway — no export at all, for every organization unless FilmScorecard has turned FilmFreeway sync off. The FilmFreeway tab of Settings, after Categories — making a key in FilmFreeway with PII on, pasting it, nothing saved until Start syncing, choosing the season — then a sync every six hours and Sync now, with a progress line, a result line and an amber count on the tab — and on the Settings row in the left navigation, which then opens the tab: what each sync brings in and updates, why the most recent change wins and a blank on FilmFreeway never wipes a field, films first and posters and screenplay PDFs after, matching categories on the tab, one choice at a time — and creating one under a name you type, films a filmmaker withdrew on FilmFreeway withdrawn here too, unless they were scored or unlocked, Needs attention instead of changing anything else, the first-sync email, the five reasons syncing pauses, replacing the key, removing it, and undoing the sync — every sync's films at once, and the stopped tab while FilmFreeway sync is off.

Working through a season's submissions

• Submissions — the season's list: searching, filtering and sorting, moving submissions through In Consideration, Selected and Not Selected, editing which categories a submission competes in — and what removing one leaves behind — withdrawing, moving a submission to another season or festival — what travels, what is deleted, and what the filmmaker and the judges see afterwards — private flags, Priority: marking a film "Judge this first" so every judge who can take it reaches it before the rest, On hold: keeping films away from judges, one at a time or in bulk, emailing submission-page links in bulk, dropping poster images straight onto rows, and the program planner.
• Opening a submission — the detail panel's six tabs: the read-out, editing the submission record in cards that open and close, with the staff-only fields an import brings in, one scoring section per category, the press kit read item by item, the scorecard link, where the release stands and whether it has been unlocked, Judge this first and Hold from judges, the submission link, the screener link, the Awards tab — every award the film is in and adding it to a non-category award — why a submission its filmmaker has saved to their own account stays fully yours to edit, and the Audit tab — the submission's whole history in one timeline: how it arrived, every edit with each field's before and after, its judging, status and hold changes, its release, every email sent about it and whether it was delivered or bounced, and the filmmaker opening their scorecard and submission page and what they did there — searchable, and filtered by type and by who.
• The public film page — a filmmaker's own public page for one film, which only they can publish or make private: what reaches it from your festival — a laurel with your festival's name, marked Verified, on a page that has a Laurels block — reading Official Selection or an award standing once your season's Notification date and Award winners announced date arrive — what never does, and why a submission's detail panel no longer has a Public page card.
• The tagline, the statement and the poster — the three parts of a submission's record with rules of their own: the one-line tagline, the one statement and what it is called on a film and on a screenplay, and uploading a poster — including what your browser does to the image before it is stored.
• Letting submitters fix their own details — the private page each filmmaker has until the season's selections are announced: the fifteen fields and the poster they may correct, the three things that have to be true for their page to be open — closing judging and releasing scorecards no longer close it — Email submission links on the bulk bar, who may send them and what it counts as, handing the address over without emailing it, and the line on your record that says a submitter has been in — with the button that shows you what they changed.
• Inviting submitters — emailing each filmmaker their submission page on its own, as their submission arrives: the Step 1 · First contact card on Settings → Emails and its choice, As each one arrives or Only when I click Send now, why a new season starts Not decided and the season overview card that asks, why a submission with no category waits, why the email waits for Open judging once the opening date has passed, who gets one and why only once, Sent so far and Send to N now, the email in its three versions, and what changing the setting does afterwards.
• Seeing what a submitter sees — opening a filmmaker's own two pages — their scorecard and their submission page — on your own account, with no access code: where the two addresses are, who is let in and who still meets the code box, the Viewing as staff pill, switching the scorecard to Filmmaker view to see its price, checkout and Share as the filmmaker does, what those pages will not let you do, and why your visit costs the filmmaker nothing.
• An incomplete record — the quiet amber dot on the list and the sentence on the Information tab: what a complete record is, why an imported submission is measured on less, and why none of it is ever enforced.

Working with an AI app

• Connecting an AI app — for festival staff in an organization FilmScorecard has switched AI access on for: what connecting an app to your account means, the page that asks you to allow it, the 34 tools a connected app can use — reading almost every staff screen you can open, from a season's submissions, judges, scorecards, awards, announcements and judge pay to your organization's directory, Inbox, orders, library and settings, and three changes: moving films between statuses after a preview, setting your own flag and marking films Priority — which permission each one needs, what it is never given, why reading your Inbox through it marks nothing read, every sentence it is told when it is refused, the limit of 120 calls a minute, the record kept of every call, disconnecting it, and what happens when AI access is switched off.
• Using an AI app — once an app is connected: how it works in a minute, habits that get good answers (name the season, narrow the question, read the preview before a status move), example questions for submissions, judging, awards, pay and your organization, what it cannot do, and keeping it safe.
• Connecting Claude — every step for claude.ai and the Claude desktop app, from adding the custom connector to pressing Allow, what to ask first, what to do when something goes wrong, and disconnecting it.
• Connecting ChatGPT — every step for ChatGPT on the web, from turning on developer mode to pressing Allow, what to ask first, what to do when something goes wrong, and disconnecting it.
• Connecting Claude Code — the one command that adds FilmScorecard to Claude Code, authenticating from /mcp, having it in every folder, what to do when something goes wrong, and disconnecting it.
• Connecting Cursor — the lines to add to Cursor's mcp.json, logging in from Tools & MCP, what to do when something goes wrong, and disconnecting it.
• Connecting another AI app — whether an app FilmScorecard has no page for can connect, the technical detail for whoever sets it up, every step, and what to do when it cannot.

Building a season's judging panel

• Opening a judge call — the Open judge call card on Settings → Judging: putting your season on the judge portal's open-calls board so judges you have never met can apply. The switch, the applications close date, the roles and submission types you are recruiting for, the categories you open, why the pay figures are derived rather than typed, the Where applicants send questions address, and where to copy your public page's link from, the two fields you can also change from that page, and closing a call without losing your setup.
• Judges — the Roster tab of the season's Judges screen, whose three tabs now switch without reloading: inviting judges by email, the two judging roles, why a judging coordinator is a member of your organization rather than a judge, who may change the roster — Manage judges and assignments, now needed for every change on it — narrowing what somebody may be assigned, the FilmFreeway access switch that decides whether FilmFreeway-only submissions reach a judge, the Pricing card that says what one judge is paid — or that they are on the season as a volunteer — pausing and resuming access, removing a judge, why judge IDs are now one number per person, what a judge's own profile holds, and which progress numbers are real now that scorecards are being filed.
• Judge requests — the Requests tab beside it: judges who applied to one of this season's open calls. Reading whether they accepted your prices — or applied as a volunteer — applications for both kinds of judging, read as Creative + Technical, countering them category by category, reading the answer they send back and what it changes about what accepting pays, messaging them, declining with a reason, accepting one straight onto the season on the terms that were agreed — and Hire for, which takes a both-kinds applicant on for one — acting on several at once, and why a request can disappear without warning.
• Invites sent — the Invites sent tab: every offer this season has out, whoever sent it. Inviting a judge without leaving the screen, resending, withdrawing an offer, what each of those emails the judge, and the one email a judge's answer sends back to you.
• What an invitation pays — the terms an invitation carries: one rate pair per submission category, seeded from what the season posts and yours to tune before you send — or no pay at all, because you may now invite one judge as a volunteer onto a season that pays its others. Why $0.00 refuses to send, what the judge is shown, why accepting freezes the terms for good, and what accepting an open-call application writes instead.
• How the judging queue works — nobody is assigned a film: every judge's queue is worked out from the season's submissions, the scope you set and what everybody has done. Why a film in two categories needs a full panel in each, the order films are offered in — films already under way first, the ones nearest finished next — and Priority, the one lever you hold over it. Its second half answers "why can my judge not see film X" step by step, including the season whose opening date has passed but whose judging nobody has opened, and the film you have put On hold, and a creative scorecard waiting for its film's technical scorecard to be approved.
• Judges directory — your organization's own screen: every judge on FilmScorecard who has opted in, whoever they have judged for — searching and filtering the pool by genre, compensation, judge type, availability and location, reading a profile, keeping a private note, and inviting somebody onto one of your seasons with per-category rates attached, or as a volunteer, and with or without FilmFreeway access — see What an invitation pays.
• When a judge pauses or asks to leave — the three decisions a judge can now make about you: pausing new assignments everywhere, asking to leave one of your seasons, and refusing invitations from a festival. The emails, the Leave requested pill and how to resolve it, why a refused invitation never tells you why, and why a block and a decline are impossible to tell apart.

Reviewing filed scorecards

• Review Queue — every filed scorecard, one row each: the four states, the five tabs and the filters, the two counts beside it in the navigation, approving one scorecard or hundreds — which is what releases scores into the rest of the season — scorecards on a category the film no longer competes in, how a press-kit card reads with half of it read-only, and reminding a judge to rewrite.
• Issues your judges raise — the queue's Issue tab: a film a judge skipped for a technical problem, and a problem a judge reported while scoring, what they wrote, the emails your staff are sent about them, fixing the screener link in place, replying to a report and marking it resolved, sending a skipped film back to that judge or dismissing it — and why a film On hold cannot go back — and working through several at once.
• Reading and editing a scorecard — the panel behind each row: the judge's answers, marks and written feedback — in the boxes the scorecard has switched on — their answers to the questions the filmmaker asked, editing any of it with an attributed record — approved scorecards included — a scorecard on a removed category, withdrawing an award recommendation, and approving from inside the panel.
• Rewriting written feedback — the Rewrite button on each of a creative scorecard's two feedback boxes — and on a written answer to a question the filmmaker asked — and the selection bar that appears over any words you highlight in them: Rewrite, Extend, Shorten, or a Custom instruction of your own, for anyone who can approve scorecards. Where they are, what each one asks for, exactly what is sent to OpenAI and what is not, Undo, what is held while it runs, the two sentences it can fail with, and why nothing is saved until you save or file.
• Filling out a scorecard yourself — scoring a film from the Submissions list when you do not want to wait for a judge: the chooser, why a creative row is never taken — one card per colleague, and Edit to change your own — the scoring page, the filmmaker's own questions, which you answer exactly as a judge would, the press kit card and the half of it nobody marks, the confirm, and everything that changes the moment you file — including your creative card taking one of the category's places, so one judge fewer is sent to it, and the first creative filing freezing that submitter's questions for good.

Paying your judges

• Paying your judges — the Ledger tab of the season's Payouts screen, whose three tabs now switch without reloading: what each judge's approved scorecards add up to, the invoices waiting to be paid with View and Mark paid on each, how a volunteer's $0.00 lines read, logging the payments you make outside FilmScorecard — with receipts — overpayments and credits, voiding a mistake, opening and printing any judge's pay statement, and who sees what.
• Judge invoices — the Invoices tab: invoices your judges send, your payment terms, accepting, returning and marking one paid.
• The payments log — the Payments tab, the last of the three: every payment the season has recorded, one row each, newest first. The columns, what "Covers" means, the search and the two filters, how a voided payment reads, and voiding one from there.
• Your pay statement — the same statement from the judge's side, and Earnings — the judge's own screen where your records land. Read them before you answer "what can my judges actually see?"

Judge pay is money you move yourself and record here. Your organization's own payout account is a different thing — see Connecting payouts.

Telling your judges something

• Announcements — one message to a group of a season's judges, in their FilmScorecard inbox and by email: the six audiences, drafts and who owns them, what posting actually does, why a posted announcement can never be edited or deleted, duplicating, and archiving your own list.
• Who has read an announcement — the read receipts behind every sent announcement: the three counts, who has opened it and when, the CSV export, and the judge's-eye preview.
• Messaging your judges — the Inbox row at the top of your organization's navigation: a two-way conversation with one judge at a time. Who you can write to, what the judge receives, the amber unread count, how the conversation and the list keep themselves up to date while you watch, archiving, editing and deleting what you sent, the four reasons the message box can be replaced by a strip, and why nobody else at your organization can read any of it.

Deciding a season's awards

• Awards — the season's award cards, in two kinds: category awards, one per category with entries, with their TOP SCORES and the Release rank switch that shows submitters their position; and the non-category awards attached from your library. A tab for each kind, the Waiting and Completed status filter, naming winners and co-winners, adding honorable mentions, clearing a decision, Release all ranks, what "decided" and "completed" mean, and how a result reaches a filmmaker — their own account and public page, from the season's Award winners announced date.
• Award pools — one award's entrants: how each of them got in, what makes a submission eligible, why a category award's pool is kept for you and carries positions, setting results one at a time or in bulk, adding and removing entrants — here or from a submission's own Awards tab — and what the numbers on the screen do and do not mean.

Giving filmmakers their results

• Releasing scorecards — the one-way actions on Settings → Results: the five ways a season's scorecards can open — including the two that wait for approval, When every submission is approved and As each submission is approved, which releases each submission on its own as its judging is approved, and which a new festival's first season starts on — Release the rest, what each submitter is emailed, which submissions get nothing, why ranks are released separately, and what a filmmaker then reads — and can now share.
• Releasing one submission's scorecard — the Release scorecard button on a submission's Settings tab: opening one film's scorecard ahead of its season, who has the button, what the card says in each state, choosing whether to email the access code or hand over the link, what the filmmaker reads while the season is still being judged, and what happens when the season releases later.
• Selling scorecard access — the money side: what an unlock costs, why the price is not yours to set, what has to be true before anything sells, what you earn — the platform fee, whether it is taken on what was paid or on the full price, and your share of processing — and where the figures appear, what a sale with one of your own promo codes on it earns you, free unlock codes, checking whether one submission has been unlocked, comping a filmmaker's access, and what a refund does.
• Seeing what a submitter sees — reading the scorecard you have just released exactly as the filmmaker reads it, signed in and without their code.

If a festival invited you to judge

• Your judging invitation — the email and the link it carries, the compensation it may name — or the line saying it names none — and the festival's payment terms, accepting — with the Judge Code of Conduct box — or declining, what to do when the link has stopped working, and where you land afterwards.
• Your invitations — the Invitations tab of your inbox: every offer any festival has made you, in one list. The five statuses, what the pay column means, accepting, declining, blocking a festival, and why an answered invitation never leaves the list.
• Setting up your judge profile — the four screens you answer after accepting: the formats you review and the kind of judging you do, the genres you review, who you are, where you are — country is the one answer that is required — your photo, how much you can take on, your JDG- number, who can see any of it, how to change your answers later, and where finishing takes you — back to an application you were on the way to, if you were.
• Your judging home — the screen you work from: how it picks a festival, what every number on it means, the film in front of you, the "That film is no longer available." line, "Judging hasn't opened yet", for a festival whose opening date has passed before it opened judging, the line counting films waiting for their technical review, the Returned list — scorecards sent back to you for changes, the Judge Code of Conduct you confirm before judging, the two empty states, and what the screen does not have yet.
• One film at a time — you hold one film until you finish it or hand it back: the In progress pill and Continue scoring, why no second film is offered, the two ways out, and the 48-hour backstop.
• Scoring a film — the scoring screen: how pressing Start scoring takes the film, the 48-hour hold and what happens when it lapses, the one-card and two-card screens, the film pane and everything it shows you about the film — including Open PDF for a screenplay the festival uploaded — autosave, the questions the filmmaker wrote themselves and why you cannot file until you have answered them, filing each card on its own, reporting a problem with the film to the festival without leaving it, and what you never see of other judges.
• The technical review card — Pass and Fail, the note a Fail needs, the two figures at the foot, and why there is no Skip button while you hold it.
• The creative scorecard — the five kinds of question, the block of questions the filmmaker wrote themselves, the feedback boxes the festival asks for — one, both or neither — and who reads them, and recommending a film for up to three awards.
• Leaving a film you started — Skip: technical issue against Decline: conflict or other, declaring a conflict, what happens to a card you had already filed, and which of them a festival can undo.
• Your account — Your profile (who you are, where you are based, your photo and what you judge, each edited from its own pencil) and the four-tab account screen: listing yourself in the judges directory and whether you judge for pay, blocking a festival, your capacity, pausing new assignments, the festivals you judge for and asking to leave one, and which notifications actually work.
• Earnings — the Earnings row: every festival you judge for in one place — what is outstanding, what has been paid all time, work awaiting approval, your approved scorecards with their rates, every payment including voided ones, one statement per paid place, an Invoices tab following every invoice you have sent, and a Volunteer tab for the places that carry no pay.
• Your pay statement — the document behind View statement: one paid place's approved work, the payments against it and the balance, printing it, and who else can see it.
• Sending an invoice — Send invoice on your pay statement: the festival's payment terms, what the invoice freezes, and what Accepted, Returned and Paid mean.
• Skipping a film — the Skip this film button on your judging home: saying "not me" before you open a film at all, when the button is there, the reason and the note, what happens to a scorecard you have already filed on the film, what the festival sees, and which reasons can be undone by a coordinator.
• A film came back to you — when a festival fixes the screener you reported and hands the film back: which reasons can come back, the email and the inbox notice, the amber note on your card, where it lands in your queue, and what you are never told.
• Open calls — the Open calls row: every festival on FilmScorecard hiring judges for a round, whoever they are. Which calls appear and in what order, reading a card, the closing line, what each category pays, and your five possible statuses — including the amber Counter received that says a festival is waiting on your answer.
• Applying to an open call — the three-step form behind Start application: the kind of judging — Creative, Technical or Both — the formats and languages you can cover, the categories you want, grouped under Film and Screenplay, whether you want to be paid at all, Festival pricing or your own figure for each category, the Judge Code of Conduct box, what happens when you submit, accepting or answering the figures a festival replies with, and withdrawing an application afterwards.
• Applying from a festival's own page — the Apply to judge button on a festival's public page: creating a judge account from it with no invitation and no beta approval, while the call is open, the log-in and sign-up screens it takes you through, and the profile screens that bring you back to the application.
• Your inbox — the Inbox row in your judging navigation: the first of its three tabs — announcements and notices in one list, read and unread, the filters, Mark all read, archiving, and the notices that arrive when a film comes back to you or a coordinator writes.
• Messaging festival staff — the Messages tab: who you can write to — including the staff of a call you have only applied to — how your message reaches them and how their reply comes back, without reloading, while you have the tab open, archiving and reviving a conversation, blocking someone, and reporting a conversation to FilmScorecard.
• How the judging queue works — why that film and not another: the order films are chosen in, why your total shrinks while you work, what happens when a film fills up before you press Start, why a film's creative scorecard can wait until its technical one is approved, why a film of your own that is saved to your account never reaches you, and why you never see another judge.
• When a festival is unavailable — the grey This festival is unavailable. card, and what happens meanwhile to that festival's films, open calls, invitations and conversations — and what comes back, by itself, when it is available again.

If you sent in a submission

• Your submission page — the private page a festival sends you, where you can fix your own entry's details: the email that carries it, which version you get and when none is sent, the button that signs you in and the code that works on any device, the overview it opens on — the dark header, the tile the email you came from puts first, and a tile each for your details, your questions, your scorecard and contacting the festival — moving between its pages, and the way back to your scorecard once it is out, the fifteen fields and the poster you may change on Submission details, the two questions of your own you can put to your judges, on a page of their own — what the judges already answer, the warning when you ask about it again, the kinds of answer, what happens if you change one while judging is starting, and the filing that locks them for good — How it's judged: the scorecard every judge fills in for your category, what only the festival can change, the press-kit checklist and the rows that take you to their fields, one save bar for every page and every way a save can fail, and what still opens once edits close at the festival's selection date.
• Contacting the festival — the message form on your submission page and your scorecard: where it opens, the four topics, what is sent with your message, Message sent and the reply that comes by email, the daily limit and every message the form can show, and what the festival sees.
• Your scorecard — the page your results email links to: one panel per category, each with its own score, its own judges and its own scorecard to unlock; every question your judges answered; the answers to the questions you asked them yourself, under "You asked"; your place in each category — why it reads "Calculating" until the festival releases it, and when it can still move — what happens to a category the festival takes your film out of, the PDF, what is never on it, and the "Not available yet" page a link shows before release.
• Getting into your scorecard — the nine-character access code, which opens both of the pages above: entering it, staying in, every message the code box can show, the lockout, asking for a new code, what to do when no code was ever sent, and the people who can open your page without a code — the festival's staff, and you, once the submission is saved to your account.
• Paying for your scorecard — what unlocking costs, the card that offers it, using a promo code the festival gave you, the least a coded order still costs — and the free unlock code that costs nothing, and every way one can be refused, paying on Stripe and coming back, your receipt email with its invoice, the three states with no button, and why purchases are final.
• An offer from a festival — the email a festival sends with a promo code for your scorecard: why you got it, what it says, using the code, the button and access code it carries — usually the ones you already hold — and stopping that festival's offers with its Unsubscribe link.
• Sharing your scorecard — the Share button on your scorecard: the card it builds and every choice on it, choosing which of your released ranks goes on it, adding lines from the judges' notes — or from their written answers to the festival's own questions — saving the image, the public link and what anyone who opens it sees, and turning it off.
• Saving a submission to your account — putting your festival entries in one place: the submissions saved to your account by themselves because the festival has your address on them, Save to your account for any other address and the filmmaker account it can create, which project an entry joins and what a new one starts with, the one kind of project that can disappear by itself, when another account can take a submission over, and what changes once it is yours — for you, for your judging if you also judge, and for the festival.

Your films and screenplays

• Your first project — the welcome screen the first time you sign in with festival entries on your address: the project it puts together from your newest entry, which of your other entries join it and why, Open, and how entries that arrive later join a project by themselves.
• Your projects — a filmmaker's own workspace: where you land — the project you opened last — and the Your projects row that leads there from other menus, the sidebar — Overview, Page, Festivals, Scorecards, Messages and Stats, with their counts and Pro pills, then Details, and the plan line at its foot — the top bar with the project switcher, the bell and the account menu, adding a project with its runtime or page count and why its format is fixed, the Overview: To do — whose Add links open Details at the field — Festivals, Updates, the Page card with its state and last 30 days of views, video plays and link clicks, and Up next, and the workspace on a phone.
• Your project's details — the Details tab, the last in a project's sidebar: the title, length, year, genre, country, language, logline, synopsis, poster, trailer link and credits, saved together with Save changes, why the format is shown but not changed, and why saving them never changes what a festival holds.
• Editing your page — the Page tab, where you build your public page from blocks: the page bar, the starter page a project begins with, Get your page ready, adding, moving, hiding and removing blocks, every block and its fields — the header that reads your Details, links, social links, text, video, images, laurels that fill themselves from your festivals, screenings, press quotes, cast and crew, where to watch and the contact form — the Design tab's themes, fonts and colours, the draft that saves itself, publishing and what holds it, Discard draft, Make page private, View as visitor, the page address, and the builder on a phone.
• The public film page — who can open your page, and what they see: publishing it and making it private, the address and when it can change, the contact form and where its messages go, the festival laurels that appear on their own once each festival announces, link previews, views, video plays and link clicks, and what the page never shows.
• The bell — what festivals are asking you for, and what they have announced: the amber count and the dot, the To do list — sending a field from your project's details straight to a festival, which eight fields can be sent, and the scorecards waiting to be read — the Updates — selections, awards, released scorecards, visitors' messages and entries that joined a project by themselves, with Move — marking them seen, dismissing them, and reading a message.
• Your festival entries — a project's Festivals and Scorecards: the Festivals table, with its search, Status filter and sorting, the status pill and why it waits for the festival's announcement date — and the Award winner pill, the Scorecard column, the festival's next results or awards date, the entry panel — opening your scorecard and submission page with no code, and copying your project's current details into an entry — adding an entry with its access code, moving one or several entries to another project, and the Scorecards tab: every scorecard the festivals have released.
• Creator Pro — the paid plan for one project, $4.99 a month or $39.99 a year with tax included: what it adds — the contact form and its Messages inbox, Stats, and taking the Made with FilmScorecard footer off your page — every Get Pro and the dialog it opens, the one free 30-day trial per account, checking out on Stripe and coming back, the plan line in each state, Manage billing — switching plans, cancelling, your card and invoices, all on Stripe's page — a failed payment, what ending Pro locks and what it keeps, the six emails, and why a support session cannot buy or change it.
• Messages — a Pro project's inbox for its page's contact form: every message a visitor sends, searching them, New, Replied and Archived, opening one and Reply by email, and marking or archiving one or many at once.
• Stats — who a Pro project's page reaches: the last 7 days, the last 30 days or since you published, page views, visitors, link clicks, video plays and messages, clicks by link, and where visitors came from.

If somebody invited you to their organization

• Your organization invitation — the email and its link, what accepting actually does — including when you already own an organization of your own — where you land afterwards, and what to do when the link has stopped working.
• Working in two organizations — what changes once you belong to a second one, or own it.

When a link does not work

• Page not found — the screen the guides above keep mentioning: what it says, the two sentences on it to read with care, what the Requested address box leaves out before you paste it into an email, which of its two buttons is the useful one once you are signed in, and who to write to.

Getting in touch, and the small print

• Contacting us — the Contact link at the foot of the home page, every log-in and sign-up screen, and the left navigation: the form behind it field by field, who reads what you send and how the reply comes back, every message the form can show, and which questions belong to a festival rather than to FilmScorecard.
• The Terms, the Privacy Policy and the two role agreements — the Terms and Privacy links beside it, and the cookie notice at the top of every page: a map of both documents section by section, the Effective date and what it means, the box you tick when an account is created, what that records and when, and what happens to accounts that were created before the box existed. And the Judge Code of Conduct and the Festival Host Agreement: who agrees to each and when, the confirm page a judge or an owner meets until they do, and what is paused at an organization until one of its owners agrees.

Do I need to sign up?

The short version: if someone told you your festival is on FilmScorecard, try logging in first — unless you are a filmmaker reading your own scorecard or correcting your own submission, neither of which needs an account at all. Logging in is not affected by the private beta; only opening a brand-new account for yourself is, and that means registering and waiting to be approved — or, for a judge, arriving through a festival's public page while its judge call is open. Approval makes the account for you, so the log-in screen is where you end up either way. Creating an organization is the one thing an account still needs a host approval for, however the account was made.

A festival entering your film does not give you an account. If you have never made one, logging in with the address you entered with sends no code. Register on the Creators page instead, or press Keep it on your scorecard to make a free account from your entry — or simply use the button and the code in the festival's emails, which need no account at all.

Whichever route creates your account, it asks you once to agree to the Terms of Use and the Privacy Policy, on the form you fill in. Keep it, on a scorecard, has no form: a line on the code screen says that entering the code is your agreement — see Keep it, on a scorecard: a line instead of a box. An ordinary log-in never asks. See The Terms of Use and the Privacy Policy.

More guides arrive here as more of FilmScorecard ships.