Applying to an open call

The three-step form behind Start application on a call's page. It asks what kind of judging you want and what you can cover, which of the call's categories you want, and whether you want to be paid for the round and what each category should pay you — and then sends the whole thing to the festival in one move, together with your agreement to the Judge Code of Conduct.

It is also where you answer the festival if they reply with different figures — see When the festival replies with different rates.

The board these calls come from, and everything about reading a call before you decide, is on Open calls. This guide is only the applying.

Nothing reaches the festival until you press Submit application, and withdrawing afterwards deletes the application outright — see Withdrawing an application before you use it.

Getting to the form

Start application, in the right-hand column of a call's page. The button is drawn only when the call is open and you have no application on it.

Or Apply to judge, on the Judging tab of a festival's own public page, when the festival has switched one on — it opens the same form. See The public festival page.

The address is the call's own address with /apply on the end, so the form can be bookmarked and reopened. You need to be signed in with a finished judge profile: signed out you go to the log-in screen, and with an unfinished profile you are sent to finish it — see Setting up your judge profile. Either way you are brought back here afterwards. Arriving from a festival's public page with no account at all, the log-in screen also lets you create one, past the private beta — see Creating an account.

This form never stops you for the Judge Code of Conduct. Elsewhere in your judging screens, a judge who has not agreed to its current version meets a confirm page first — see The two role agreements. This address is one of the two places that let you straight in, because its own Submit application carries the agreement box.

That same address is your application once you have sent one, and it is worth bookmarking, because nothing on the board or on the call's page links to it: Start application stops being drawn the moment you have applied. The other ways back are the festival's own email when they reply with different rates, which links straight to it, and — when the festival has a public page switched on — its View application button, there while the call is open.

A mistyped address, a call that does not exist, and a call a festival has scheduled but not opened yet all give "page not found", and deliberately do not tell you which. A closed call is not one of those — its pages keep working.

The four things this address can show you

Exactly one of them, and the order is fixed:

An application on file wins over everything else. If you applied and were then put onto that season some other way, you still see your application here, and you can still withdraw it.

Before you start

The call's page says what applying costs before you open the form: "Three steps, about five minutes. Nothing is sent to the festival until you submit." It is exactly true.

Your answers live in this browser tab and nowhere else

• Reloading the page keeps everything you have typed. So does moving between the steps, and so does the browser's back button.
• Closing the tab loses it. There is no draft on the server, nothing is saved to your account, and a second tab on the same call starts fresh.
• An abandoned application leaves no trace anywhere — not on your account, not on the festival's screens, not in any list. Nothing exists until you submit.
• Drafts are kept per call, so a half-filled application to one call is not disturbed by starting another.
• On a successful submit the draft is cleared, because the application itself has replaced it.

What is filled in for you

On a first visit — and only when the tab holds no answers of your own — FilmScorecard seeds two answers from your judge profile:

The kind of judging, your rates and your note are never prefilled. The categories start on Apply for all, the pricing on Festival pricing, and the subtitles question on its first option. Whether you want to be paid starts on Paid and is not read from your profile either — see Paid or volunteer. Nothing you do on this form ever changes your profile, and once you have touched the form your own answers always win — including a field you deliberately emptied.

The three steps

The stepper across the top names them: About you, Categories, Rate & submit.

There is no availability step any more. The form does not ask how many films a week you can take, or when you are away. An application filed before this change keeps the pace and away dates it was sent with, and both you and the festival still see them — see After you apply.

Step 1 — About you

What can you cover?

Tell the coordinator which formats and languages you can score, so nothing lands with you that you cannot judge.

Up to four questions, two of which appear only when there is a real choice to make.

What do you want to judge?

Only on a call hiring for both kinds of judging, three options sit at the top of the step:

• Most calls do not ask this at all. A call hiring for one kind of judging draws no control, and that kind is simply what you are applying for. You are never asked a question with one answer.
• There is no default. Nothing is pre-picked, because the kinds pay different money and reach different categories — and leaving it unanswered stops you moving on: "Pick the kind of judging you want to do."
• Both is one application, not two. It asks for a figure per category for each kind of judging, and the festival can take you on for either kind or for both — see The three states it can be in.
• It decides which categories step 2 offers. A category is offered only if it can be judged the way you picked. With Both, only the categories scored both ways are offered, because the application asks for both on every one.

Formats

Film, Screenplay or Both — asked only when the call has categories of both kinds that can be judged the way you picked. A call with only film categories, or only screenplay ones, asks nothing and applies for that format. An episode category counts as film.

This answer is scope too: naming films alone means an accepted application puts you on films alone; naming both leaves you open to both. It also decides which sections step 2 shows. With nothing chosen on a call that asks, you are stopped with "Pick at least one format you can cover."

Languages you can score

The platform's twelve languages as a grid of tick boxes, three across — two across on a phone — with English and Spanish first. There is no search box; all twelve are always in view. Pick at least one.

These are yours, not the call's: a call describes its own slate in its own words elsewhere, and nothing on this grid is filtered by it. Nothing narrows your queue by language — it is a fact the coordinator reads.

Subtitles

Two options, one of them always chosen:

• "No subtitles needed for the languages I picked" (where it starts)
• "I need English subtitles for anything outside them"

It is answered from the moment the step opens, so it is the one question here that can never be wrong. It is also the one answer the festival's screens do not show — see What the festival can read.

Step 2 — Categories

Which categories do you want?

These are the festival's Fall 2026 season categories in this round. Pick the ones you want to be assigned from.

The categories this call opens that can be judged the way you picked, in the formats you picked — under a Film heading and then a Screenplay heading. A heading with nothing under it is not drawn, so a film-only application shows one section.

This list is not always the whole season. A festival chooses which of its categories a call is open to; one it left out is not here, is not on the call's page either, and cannot be applied for. Where they opened the call to everything this is the season's whole line-up.

Above the list, under Categories, two choices:

• A tick that drops out of view is kept. Change the kind of judging or the format on step 1 and a category you ticked may leave the list; change your mind back and it returns ticked. Only the categories in view when you submit are sent.
• The list scrolls inside its box once it is long, so the step stays one screen tall.
• There is no search box, no Select all and no film count — see What the money means.

Each row ends with the price this festival posts for that category, in a column per kind of judging you chose — Creative, Technical, or both side by side on a Both application:

These prices are what the festival posts, and they keep showing here even if you choose to volunteer on step 3. This step is about what the round is worth, not about what you have decided to ask for.

Under the list, the line that matters most:

The coordinator assigns inside what you pick. Taking fewer categories does not weaken your application.

Read that literally: it is what happens. Accepting your application puts you on the season scoped to exactly the categories in your application — and to the formats you named on step 1 — so a category you leave out is not work you will be offered. Your picks decide both the money and the scope.

Two riders:

• The coordinator can change it afterwards, on their own roster, in either direction, and once you are on the season you are told by email when they do.
• Picking narrowly is not a weaker application, but it is a real answer about what you will be given. Keep everything you would genuinely take.

Step 3 — Rate and submit

Your rates, then submit

This is the step that changed, and it changed for a reason. You used to name one flat per-film figure here, and the festival then paid you what the season posted per category instead. Now the prices you see are the prices you are paid: the festival posts one per category, you accept them or argue with them, and accepting your application pays the figure that was agreed.

And on a call that pays, you can now choose not to be paid at all.

Paid or volunteer: the choice at the top of step 3

On a call that pays its judges, two segments sit above everything else on this step, under the heading Do you want to be paid for this round?

Paid is where it starts, and that is deliberate: leaving step 3 alone is still a complete application at the festival's own posted prices, so nobody volunteers by omission. Choosing Volunteer is something you do on purpose.

Picking Volunteer puts this line under the two segments:

You are applying as a volunteer. This call does pay its judges, and no scorecard you file on it would carry a payout.

Your typed figures are not thrown away. Switch back to Paid and every number you had entered is still there.

On a call that does not pay, there is no choice and no control. The section is absent — not greyed out — and so is all pricing. The step's intro reads:

This panel is unpaid, so there is nothing to name here. Applying means volunteering your time.

You cannot ask to be paid on an unpaid call. If the festival changes its mind and starts paying, that is a new call or a direct invitation, not something this form can ask for.

Choosing Volunteer changes nothing except your own application. Other judges on that season are unaffected, the festival's posted prices do not move, and nothing about the call changes for anybody else.

One thing it cannot be undone by: once the application is in, there is no control anywhere that turns a volunteer application into a paid one. Not on your side, and not on the festival's — they cannot counter a volunteer application, because there is no figure to counter. If you meant to be paid, withdraw while the call is open and apply again. See Withdrawing an application.

The line at the top of the step

One of three, and it depends on the call rather than on your answers:

"The festival pays you directly" is meant literally. No money moves through FilmScorecard, as the Judge Code of Conduct you agree to on this step also says.

Festival pricing or Custom

Drawn only while you are applying as Paid, under the heading Pay, per scorecard:

The list has one row per category in your application — its rows come from step 2, so change your picks there, not here — and a column for each kind of judging you are applying for: Creative, Technical, or both side by side on a Both application, which asks for two figures per category. A category with nothing posted reads Not priced yet under Festival pricing, and its box under Custom starts empty with 0.00 as its hint.

Leaving Festival pricing alone is a complete application. That is the intended common path, not a shortcut: a form submitted on Festival pricing is a full application at the festival's own prices. You can send it without touching step 3 at all.

Choose Custom only to ask for something different. Then:

• Type a plain number — the $ is printed beside the box, so 225 and 225.50 are both right.
• Two decimal places at most. 12.345 is refused rather than quietly rounded to $12.35, and negatives, thousands separators and anything that is not a number are refused too.
• The ceiling is $10,000.00 on any one figure.
• Anything the box cannot read says so, under its row: "Enter an amount like 12.50, or leave it blank to accept the posted price."
• A box you empty goes back to the posted price, and so does a box you never touched: only a figure you changed is sent as your own ask.
• A category with nothing posted is not a trap. Under Festival pricing it carries no figure, so if you want to be paid for it, choose Custom and name a number there — that is the most useful thing you can do on such a call.

Switching back to Festival pricing keeps what you typed, so switching to Custom again brings it back — but nothing typed is sent while Festival pricing is chosen.

The list scrolls inside its box once it is long. Under it, one line: "Amounts are per scorecard." If you have no categories in your application there is no list, only the words "None picked". Go back to step 2.

The note, and what you are about to send

Note to the festival, optional. Up to 600 characters, with a live "138 of 600 characters" counter under it. Over the limit: "Your note is over 600 characters." Spaces at the ends are not counted.

The coordinator reads that note first. On their side it sits at the top of your record, above every figure, with the date you sent it.

Then What the festival will see — a read-only block listing the kind of judging you chose (Judge type, only on a call that asked it — "Creative + Technical" for Both), your formats, languages and subtitles answer, your categories, your rate as one line, and your note, each with an Edit link that jumps to the step that owns it. Blanks show as "None picked" or "None" on purpose: this block exists to show you what is still unanswered before you commit.

The "Your rate" row is a span, not a total. It reads $16.00 per scorecard when every figure in your application comes to the same, and $8.00 to $16.00 per scorecard when they differ — the cheapest and the dearest, across both kinds of judging on a Both application, with no arithmetic between them.

Its footer:

Your name, languages and judging history on FilmScorecard are attached from your profile.

The agreement box

The last thing before the button is one tick box:

I agree to the Judge Code of Conduct

Judge Code of Conduct is a link, and it opens in a new tab so you do not lose the form. The box is not part of your saved answers: reloading the page unticks it.

Submit application with it unticked sends nothing, and one sentence appears under the box: "You need to agree to the Judge Code of Conduct to continue." Problems anywhere else on the form are pointed out first; the box is checked once everything else is answered.

Ticking it is what records your agreement. It is stored with your account — once per version of the document, not once per festival — and FilmScorecard will not take the application without it. What the document asks of you, and when you are asked again, is in The Terms, the Privacy Policy and the two role agreements.

And then Submit application.

Moving between the steps

• Continue checks the step you are on and moves you forward. Back goes one step.
• Nothing is checked while you type. You are never told a field is wrong before you have finished with it.
• The stepper's buttons work for steps you have reached. A step further ahead than your answers have earned declines the click rather than disappearing, and a step you have gone past shows a check instead of its number.
• The step is in the address (?step=3), so the browser's back and forward buttons walk the steps and a half-finished application has a link of its own. Remember that the link carries the step, not the answers — those never leave the tab.
• The stepper is three buttons on every call, whether or not it asked you what kind of judging you want or which format. Those questions are part of step 1, not steps of their own.
• A link to a step further on than your answers reach lands on the first unfinished step, and an address with an unreadable step value — including ?step=4 from a bookmark made before the form had three steps — lands on step 1. Neither is an error.

When something is wrong

A red block appears at the top of the card, headed "One thing to fix before you continue" or "3 things to fix before you continue", with one line per problem. Each line is a link to the step that owns it, and names that step when it is not the one you are looking at — "Categories: Pick at least one category you want to judge."

Pressing Submit application with anything unanswered anywhere marks all three steps and lists every problem in that block, so a missing language on step 1 is visible from step 3.

"You need to agree to the Judge Code of Conduct to continue." is not in that block. It appears under the agreement box itself — see The agreement box.

The right-hand column

Pay, per scorecard at the top, and then the figure it heads — a span across the categories this call covers:

That last case is the rail following your own answer. Pick Volunteer on step 3 and the figure here becomes Volunteer immediately, because this column states what your application would carry rather than what the call posts. Switch back to Paid and the span returns.

The column scrolls inside itself when it is taller than the window — an application for all of a long season's categories lists every one of them — so its last rows are never hidden below the fold.

Under it, the facts of the call: Festival, Round, Films in the round, Judges needed, Window, Applications close. Anything the festival did not post is left out entirely rather than shown as a dash.

"Films in the round" is the only film figure on this screen, and it is a figure about the whole round rather than about your picks. "Judges needed" is the size of the panel being hired — there is no figure anywhere for how many people have applied or how many places are spoken for.

What you would be paid

A block that appears as soon as your application has categories, and changes as you work: one row per category, with the figure that category would pay you — the posted price, or your own number where you have typed one under Custom. On a Both application each row carries two figures, labelled Creative and Technical.

• A figure reads "Not priced yet" when the festival has posted nothing for it and you have named nothing either.
• There is no total, and there never will be. A running total would have to be built from how many films each category holds, and those counts are deliberately not on this screen — see What the money means.
• The line under it says what the figures are: "Per scorecard you file, for each category you picked. The coordinator assigns inside them."
• On a volunteer call the block is absent — and so it is the moment you pick Volunteer on a paying call. There are no figures to list once you have declined them, and leaving them on screen would contradict step 3 beside it.

Then About the festival — the festival's description, at most two lines of it, then its About text, how many seasons it has run on FilmScorecard, its location and its website, each left out when the festival has not filled it in — and Before you submit:

The festival reviews applications after May 12 and you will hear either way. You can withdraw any time before they decide.

What the money means

• Every figure on this screen is per scorecard you file. One category, one film, one card, one payment of that category's rate.
• The prices are the festival's own, per category, taken from the season behind the call. What you see is what an accepted application is worth — if you are applying to be paid.
• The budget span covers the categories this call opens, not every category the season runs — so two calls at the same festival can quote two different ranges.
• There is no per-category film count anywhere on this screen — not on the category rows and not as a projected total. The festival tells you the size of the round and no more.
• "Not priced yet" and "Volunteer" are different states. The first is a paying festival that has not set a figure; the second is work that carries no pay — either because the panel is unpaid, or because you chose to volunteer on one that is not. Neither is ever printed as $0.00.

What Submit does

One press, one send.

• Everything is checked again on the server, against the call as the database has it rather than as your browser remembers it. A category the festival deleted while you were filling the form in, a category they took off the call, or a price that moved is caught there.
• Whether you asked to be paid is checked there too. A paid application to a call that has stopped paying is refused with a sentence of its own — see If applying is refused. A volunteer application is never refused for this reason, because volunteering is allowed on any call.
• The price recorded against each category is read at that moment, not taken from what your browser was showing. So a coordinator who edited a price while you were typing cannot make it look as though you argued with a number you never saw.
• A volunteer application records nothing asked for. Every category you picked carries the festival's posted price as the quote and zero as your ask, which is the honest record of "they offered this, I asked for nothing".
• A Both application is one application, holding both kinds of judging and a figure for each on every category.
• Your application, your category picks, the prices for them and your agreement to the Judge Code of Conduct are written together or not at all. There is no half-filed application.
• Your name, email address and JDG- number are attached by FilmScorecard from your account. Nothing you type on this form decides who the application is from.
• The call stops counting toward the quiet number beside Open calls, its card gains an Applied pill, and this screen becomes your application.
• No email goes out — not to you, and not to the festival. Your application simply appears on their list of requests.

After you apply

The same address now shows your application: an Applied pill, the heading "Your application is with the festival", and a monospace line — "CALL-202 · applied Aug 16 · $9.50 per scorecard · across 2 categories". When your figures differ that clause is a span — "$8.00 to $16.00 per scorecard" — taken across both kinds of judging on a Both application.

A volunteer application has no money clause on that line at all — it reads "CALL-202 · applied Aug 16 · across 2 categories". Nothing invents a $0.00. Neither does an application filed before per-category prices, which has no figures to quote.

The pill turns amber and reads "Counter received" while the festival is waiting on you — that is, while a reply of theirs is standing and you have not answered it. The heading and the paragraph under it do not change; the card lower down is what tells you what to do. See When the festival replies with different rates.

Under it:

Applications close Sep 3 and the coordinator reviews them after that. You will hear either way. Nothing about other applicants is shown to you, and your rate is not shown to them.

A call with no closing date reads "The coordinator reviews applications as they come in." instead of the first sentence.

Then a read-only summary of exactly what you sent, and two buttons: Back to open calls, and the amber Withdraw application. The summary carries Judge type ("Creative + Technical") only on a Both application, and Pace and Away only on an application filed before the form stopped asking for them — a new one has neither, and nothing is shown in their place.

A filed application is not changed by anything the festival does to the call afterwards. If they narrow which categories the call is open to, your application still names the categories you picked, the coordinator still decides it, and accepting still puts you on those categories. The same is true of the season's own pay setting: a festival that switches its season to volunteer after you applied does not rewrite your application — and while a paid application of yours is still open, it cannot make that switch at all.

The money on a submitted application

One row per category, named, with the figure beside it:

• A counter reaches you in three places: this screen, the amber Counter received pill on your board and on the call's page, and an email with a link straight back here.
• You answer it on this screen — see When the festival replies with different rates.
• A volunteer application shows no money rows at all, whether the call pays or not. There is nothing to state and nothing that can be countered.
• An application filed before per-category prices existed shows no money row either. The single per-film figure it was sent with has been retired, and nothing was converted or invented in its place — and there is nothing on one for you to answer, because a counter on an old application like that has no per-category figures.

When the festival replies with different rates

A card appears between the summary of what you sent and the buttons at the foot of the screen, headed "The festival has replied with different rates" with "Countered Sep 5" under it, and Their note when the coordinator wrote one.

The table under it is the whole conversation, one row per category:

On a Both application there are two tables, headed Creative and Technical, because the festival counters both figures on every category.

Under the table, the festival's payment terms — "Paid 30 days after invoice", or "Paid on the 1st of the month" — when the festival has set them. With no terms set, nothing takes the line's place.

Then two buttons.

Accept these rates

Opens a confirmation:

Accept these rates?

You agree to be paid these figures if the festival adds you to the season. Nothing is charged and nothing is final until they accept your application.

then the agreement box — "I agree to the Judge Code of Conduct" — with Accept these rates and Not yet. Accepting with the box unticked does nothing but put "You need to agree to the Judge Code of Conduct to continue." under it; closing the dialog unticks it again.

• It records your agreement and nothing more. It does not put you on the panel — the festival still has to accept your application, and they can still decline it or reply again instead.
• It is what makes their figures the ones you are paid. Until you accept them, an acceptance of your application pays what you asked for, not what they countered.
• Afterwards the card reads "You accepted these rates on Sep 5. The festival decides next.", the amber pill goes back to Applied, and the only button left is Send a revised ask instead.

Send a revised ask

Opens a dialog headed Send a revised ask: one box per category, prefilled with the festival's figure where they made one and with your own ask where they left the category alone. Under each name, the three numbers in play — asked $16.00 · posted $12.00 · countered $14.00, with the last part dropped where there is no counter — and the rows the festival moved are tinted amber. On a Both application the boxes come in two groups, headed Creative and Technical, one box per category in each.

• Every box must hold a readable amount. Blank is not allowed here, unlike the festival's own form: your ask has to be a number. One message covers every unreadable box — "Enter amounts like 12.50 for every category." — and the boxes that caused it are marked.

• Two decimal places at most, and $10,000.00 is the ceiling, exactly as on the application form.

• Note to the festival, optional. Keep it under 600 characters; the box has no counter, and a longer one is refused with "That could not be sent. Try again." and nothing more specific, so shorten it rather than send it twice.

• The consequence is stated in the dialog:

  Your figures replace what you asked for and the festival's counter is withdrawn. They can accept, counter again, or decline.

• Commit reads Send revised ask — unless you have changed nothing, in which case it reads Accept these rates and takes you to the Accept these rates? confirmation above, agreement box and all. A revision identical to their counter is an acceptance typed the long way.

Afterwards the card reads "You sent a revised ask on Sep 5. Waiting for the festival.", your note appears under Your note, the Countered column is all em-dashes — their counter is gone — and the only button left is Revise your ask.

What you can and cannot do next

• You can accept and then still send a revised ask. Their counter stands until a revision clears it, so changing your mind is allowed right up until the festival acts.
• You cannot revise and then accept. Your revision withdrew their counter, so there is nothing left to accept — only another revision, which you can make as often as you like while they think about it.
• If they reply again, your answer is cleared and you are asked afresh. A new counter wipes what you had accepted or sent, emails you again, and puts the amber Counter received pill back. That is deliberate: agreeing to one set of figures is not agreeing to the next.
• If they withdraw their counter entirely — clearing every box on their side — the card disappears and your screen goes back to plain Applied. There is nothing standing for you to take.
• You can still withdraw the application, and the confirmation on this screen says what that costs while their counter is live.
• A closed call changes none of this. You can answer a counter after applications have closed.
• If their counter moved while your screen was open, your answer is refused with one line — "This counter can't be answered any more. The page has been refreshed." — and the screen re-reads itself so you can see the new figures. You are never held to figures you were not shown.
• Your earlier figures are not shown back to you. A revision replaces your ask in place, so note what you had asked before you change it.
• Answering emails the festival and not you. There is no confirmation in your own inbox, and no record of the exchange anywhere but this card.

The three states it can be in

"At the rates shown above" means the category rows on the same screen, and they are the exact account: the festival's countered figure on any category you accepted, and what you asked for on every other one. On a volunteer application the sentence is the same and the answer is simpler: you proposed nothing and you are paid nothing. Your place on that season is a volunteer one, and it stays one — the festival cannot upgrade it by accepting.

On a Both application the festival can take you on for one kind of judging only. Its accept carries a Hire for choice with both kinds ticked, and it may untick one; you are then paid for, and given, only the kind it kept. This screen does not say which — it reads Accepted either way. Ask the festival if it matters before you start.

And what you are given is what you asked for. Accepting scopes you to the categories on this application and the formats it names, so your queue at that festival offers those and nothing else. The exception is an application whose every category has since been detached from the season — then there is nothing left to scope you to and the festival's roster puts you on all of them. Nothing on this screen tells you which happened, or reports a change the coordinator makes afterwards.

An application filed before this form existed shows only the pill and the date. The single rate it once carried is gone, and the rows it was never asked for are left out rather than reading "Not set".

What the festival can read

Nearly all of it, now. On the coordinator's side your application is a row on their season's Judge requests tab — your name, your email address, your JDG- number, the kind of judging you applied for ("Creative + Technical" for Both), whether you accepted their prices, and the date — and opening it shows the rest:

• Your note, first, above every figure, with the date it arrived.
• The call, the kind of judging you applied for, your categories, your formats and your languages — and, on an application filed before the form stopped asking, your films a week and away dates.
• A table of the money: one row per category with what they were asking when you applied, what you asked for, and their counter where they made one — two tables, Creative and Technical, on a Both application. A category where you asked for something different is marked, which is exactly what they scan for. A volunteer application shows no table — it reads "This judge holds a volunteer seat on this season. No scorecard they file carries a payout, so there is no rate to break down." — and it is never marked as differing from their posted prices, because asking for nothing is not an argument about a number.
• Your answer to their counter, once you have given one — "Accepted your counter Sep 5" or "Revised their ask Sep 5" — and the note you sent with a revision, in full. They are also emailed the moment you answer.
• Your public judge profile underneath — where you are based, your credits, the seasons on your record and your bio — when you have listed yourself in the judges directory.

One answer is still shown nowhere: the subtitles question. It is stored with your application and no festival screen prints it. If needing subtitles matters to whether you can take a film, say it in your note as well.

Nothing else about you reaches them from this form. Your phone number, your accessibility needs and your note to coordinators live on your account and are not on this screen or theirs.

Withdrawing an application

Offered in two places, with the same dialog behind both: on this screen, and in the Applied block on the call's own page.

Withdraw application?

The festival won't see your application. You can apply again while the call is open.

with Withdraw application (amber) and Keep application. On a call that has already closed the middle line reads instead: "The festival won't see your application. Applications have closed, so you won't be able to apply again."

On this screen, while the festival's counter is still standing, one more sentence is added: "The festival's counter goes with it." It appears only where there is a live counter to lose — not after you have sent a revised ask, because your own revision already withdrew it — and only on this screen's Withdraw. The one on the call's page does not carry it, so use the button on your application when a counter is in play, or read the list below instead.

Read that first line literally.

• Withdrawing deletes the application. There is no "Withdrawn" state and no record left behind: the festival simply stops seeing it, exactly as if it had never been filed.
• Everything attached goes with it — your category picks, the prices agreed against them, your note, and the whole history of what the festival had done with it. A withdrawal after the festival countered takes their figures with it, and there is nothing left to accept — including a counter you had already accepted.
• Nobody is told. No email, no notice, no note on the festival's screens.
• It cannot be undone.

It is the only way to change your mind about volunteering. Nothing edits an application in place, so an applicant who meant to be paid — or who meant to volunteer — withdraws and applies again.

It is only offered while your application is still open — that is, while it reads Applied or Counter received. Once it says Accepted or Not selected the button is not drawn: a place on a panel is left through your account's Festivals tab, and a decline has already closed the matter.

After withdrawing

• The call is open — you land back on the empty form and can apply again from scratch. It is a genuinely new application with today's date, quoted at whatever the festival is asking now — so a price the coordinator changed in the meantime is the price you are offered on the second try, and a category they have since taken off the call is no longer there to pick. Step 3 starts on Paid again, whatever you chose last time.
• The call has closed — you get the "You can't apply to this call" card with its closing line, and the call leaves your open-calls board, because your application was the only reason a closed call was listed for you.
• The quiet number beside Open calls counts that call again.

If the festival decides while your dialog is open

Nothing is deleted, and you are told:

This application can no longer be withdrawn. Reload the page to see where it stands.

The screen behind the dialog re-reads itself at the same moment, so closing the dialog shows you the decision.

When you cannot apply

Three reasons, each one line on a quiet card headed "You can't apply to this call" with a Back to the call button and nothing else to press.

There is no button and no appeal, because none of the three is something you can do anything about from here.

One conflict FilmScorecard deliberately does not check: submitting a film to a season does not stop you applying to judge it. The coordinator sees your name and email address on the application and decides.

If applying is refused

Nothing here is optimistic. Your answers stay on the screen and nothing is written unless the whole application was.

What other judges see

The line at the foot of the sidebar on these screens is the whole rule:

Your rate and your application are visible to the festival you applied to, never to other judges.

• You are never shown anything about another applicant — not a count, not a rate, not a name, not a ranking. Those figures are not filtered out of this screen; they are never sent to your browser at all.
• No other judge is shown yours, including the prices you asked for, including whether you asked for anything, and including how you answered a counter.
• Nothing on this screen counts applicants or filled places. "Judges needed" is the size of the panel the festival is hiring.

None of that is a setting, and no festival can switch it on.

On a narrow window or a phone

• The sidebar becomes a bar across the top with a Menu button, and the standing line above moves inside it.
• The right-hand column moves underneath the form when the two no longer fit, and follows you down the page while they do.
• The stepper's three buttons wrap onto a second line when they no longer fit.
• The language grid drops to two across.
• The Paid and Volunteer segments wrap onto a second line rather than shrinking.
• Continue and Submit application go full width, with Back beneath them, and every control stays a comfortable size.
• The reply card's buttons stack, and its table scrolls sideways with the Category column pinned to the left rather than restacking each category into a block — the figures only mean anything read against each other.
• Nothing else on this screen scrolls sideways.

What this screen does not have

Named plainly so you do not go looking:

• No editing a submitted application. Withdraw and apply again is the only way to change one — the paid-or-volunteer choice included — and only while the call is open. Revising your ask is not an exception: it exists only as an answer to a counter, and it changes the figures and nothing else.
• No way to answer a counter on an application filed before per-category prices. Those carry no per-category rows — and no figure at all any more — so there is nothing to accept or replace. The festival's email is the whole of it.
• No history of the figures you revised away. The card shows what you now ask; the previous numbers are not shown back to you anywhere.
• No way to be paid after applying as a volunteer. The festival cannot counter one and cannot upgrade it at the moment of accepting. What they can do is send you an ordinary paid invitation instead — see Your judging invitation.
• No asking to be paid on an unpaid call. The call's own setting is a ceiling, and there is no control that reaches above it.
• No saving a draft anywhere but this tab. No autosave, no "saved" line, no picking it up on another device.
• No confirmation email, to you or to the festival — including when you answer a counter. The festival is emailed; you are not.
• No list of your applications, and no link to this screen from anywhere in the judge portal. The record of one is the call's own address with /apply on the end — bookmark it, use the link in the festival's email, or, while the call is open, the View application button on the festival's public page if it has one.
• No withdrawing after a decision. See Withdrawing an application.
• No different categories for each kind of judging. A Both application asks for the same categories under both, and only the categories scored both ways are offered. To judge a category that only one kind of judging covers, apply as that kind.
• No availability. The form does not ask your pace or the dates you are away. Say so in your note if either matters.
• No film counts per category, and no projected earnings figure built from them.
• No sign of the categories a festival left out of this call. You see what it opens, and there is no way to ask for anything else.
• No sign of whether other judges on that season are paid. Volunteering does not tell you what anybody else agreed, and nothing on your side ever will.
• No payment through FilmScorecard. The prices you agree are the record of what is owed, and the festival pays you directly — see Earnings. There is no payout account to connect.

Related guides

• Open calls — the board and a call's page: which calls appear, what the money means, and everything you read before pressing Start application.
• The public festival page — the other way to this form: a festival's own page, its Apply to judge button, and creating an account from it.
• Setting up your judge profile — the formats and languages this form starts from.
• Your account — whether you judge for pay, the festivals you judge for, and the record of every invitation and application.
• Your judging home — where an accepted application turns into actual work.
• Earnings — where a paid round's work is counted with its money, and a volunteer round's without.
• Your judging invitation — the other way onto a panel: a festival invites you by email, and decides for itself whether that invitation pays.