# The creative scorecard

> From FilmScorecard Help: https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/creative-scorecard

The creative card is your judgement of the work: the festival's questions, the
written feedback boxes the festival has switched on — two, one or none — and —
optionally, when the film is eligible for any — up to three awards you think the
film should be considered for.

**Several judges file a creative card on the same film**, independently, and
none of you ever sees another's. **Unless the festival has switched it off, the
card is offered only once the film's technical review has been approved** — in
a category that has a technical checklist; see
[When the creative card waits for the technical review](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/scoring-a-film.md#when-the-creative-card-waits-for-the-technical-review).
Everything about the screen around it — taking
a film, autosave, filing, leaving, reporting an issue — is on [Scoring a
film](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/scoring-a-film.md).

## What the card says at the top

The heading is **Creative scorecard**. Under it, the festival's own description
of the scorecard if they wrote one, otherwise a line explaining the scale:

> Score each question 1 (weak) to 10 (exceptional). Everything stays editable
> until you submit.

On a screen holding this card alone the line reads instead: "Score each
question 1 (weak) to 10 (exceptional). Click a value to set it; click it again
to clear it. Everything stays editable while you watch."

**Directly above the questions, one more line says which end of the scale is
which**: "1 is the lowest score, 10 the highest." It is there whenever the card
has a 1-to-10 question — the filmmaker's own included — and it stays when the
festival has written its own description, which replaces only the line above.

## The five kinds of question

A festival writes its own questions, and each one asks for an answer in one of
five ways. Whichever it is, **the answer saves the moment you give it**, and
any guidance the festival wrote appears under the question's wording.

| The question shows | How you answer it | What counts as answered |
| --- | --- | --- |
| A row of ten cells, 1 to 10 | Click a value; click another to change it | A value is set |
| **Yes** and **No** buttons | Click one | One is chosen |
| A list with round markers | Click a row — picking another moves it | Exactly one row is picked |
| A list with square markers | Click rows to tick and untick — as many as you like | At least one row is ticked |
| A box to write in | Type | Anything but blank |

**An answered question's row turns light purple**, so the one still to do is
the white row among them. On a 1-to-10 row your score is the filled number;
Yes/No questions also show **Yes** or **No** on the right once answered. The
three list-and-box kinds show what you picked in the control itself. A filed
card has no purple rows — there is nothing left to do on it.

**Nothing is optional.** Every question the card asks has to be answered before
it can be submitted, and the footer counts them for you.

## Questions from the filmmaker

On some films a second block sits under the festival's questions, headed
**Questions from the filmmaker** — up to two questions the person who entered
the film wrote themselves, marked `Q1` and `Q2`. They use the same controls,
they save the same way, **answering them is required before you can submit**,
and **none of them is scored**, including the 1-to-10 kind.

They are covered in full on [Scoring a
film](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/scoring-a-film.md#questions-from-the-filmmaker) — including what
happens when one appears while you are already working on the film.

## The feedback boxes

Under the questions sit the scorecard's written feedback boxes. **There are two
of them, and the festival decides, scorecard by scorecard, which ones you are
given**:

| The box | Its prompt |
| --- | --- |
| **Positive feedback** | "What worked, and why it worked." |
| **Opportunities for improvement** | "What could be stronger, and how." |

- **Most scorecards ask for both.** Some ask for one of them, and some for
  neither — then there is no feedback section on the card at all, not an empty
  one.
- **Every box you are shown is required.** A blank one keeps the card from
  being submitted, and the footer names it — "Add positive feedback and
  opportunities for improvement to submit.", or only the one that is blank.
- **A box you are not shown is never asked for.** Nothing about it holds the
  card back, and nothing you could not see is filed.
- **On a screen holding this card alone** the two labels are capitalised —
  **Positive Feedback**, **Opportunities for Improvement** — and that is the
  only difference.

**If the festival changes which boxes its scorecard asks for while you are
working**, your card follows the scorecard as it stands the next time it is
read: a box that has been switched on appears, empty, and is required; a box
that has been switched off disappears, and is no longer asked for. Anything you
had typed into a box that has been switched off is kept, out of sight, and
comes back if the box is switched on again; it is not required to submit. A
card you have already filed is never reopened by a change like that.

Under each box, the line that says where it goes:

> Shared with the submitter after coordinator review.

— or, on a screen holding this card alone, "Written in your own words; shared
with the submitter after coordinator review."

Read that literally. **The feedback boxes are the only thing you write that a
filmmaker may ever read** — apart from your answers to their own questions,
which reach them the same way, and any answer to a festival question it shows
on the scorecard — it goes through the festival first, and the festival decides
whether to pass it on. Everything else you record — scores, notes on award
recommendations, anything on [the technical card](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/technical-review.md) — is
for the coordinator only.

The boxes save about a second and a half after you stop typing, and at once
when you click out of them.

## Award recommendations

The section under the feedback boxes is **optional** and headed **Award
recommendations**. On a screen holding this card alone the line under the
heading reads:

> Optional. Recommend this film for any award it is eligible for. A
> recommendation is free for the filmmaker and enters the film in that award's
> pool for the coordinator to weigh.

On a screen holding both cards it is shorter: "Optional. A recommendation is
free for the filmmaker and enters the film in that award's pool." On the right
of the heading, a running count: **"1 of 3 picked"**.

**Leaving it empty is a normal outcome.** A recommendation is a note to the
coordinator that this film deserves a look for that award. **It decides nothing
and costs the filmmaker nothing.** The film enters the award's pool once the
festival approves your scorecard, and who wins is still decided by the people
running the festival. See [Award pools](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/award-pools.md) for what a pool is.

**A film eligible for no award has no Award recommendations section at all** —
no heading, no count, nothing to scroll past. There is nothing to recommend it
for, which is a normal state, not a fault. The one exception is a pick you made
before the film stopped being eligible: the section stays to show it — see
[below](#the-note).

### Picking an award

**Every award this film is eligible for is listed**, A to Z, as a row with a
tick box — the award's name, its `AWD-` code and one line of its description.
**Which awards are listed is worked out from the categories the film competes
in, not from anything about you.** The list stays in that order as you tick, and
a long one scrolls inside the section.

1. **Find the award.** A search box sits above the list — "Search 14 eligible
   awards" — matching an award's name or its `AWD-` code. Escape clears it. A
   search with no matches shows one line — `No award matches "x".` — and a
   **Clear search** link.
2. **Tick it.** It is picked at once, the row is highlighted, and a note box
   opens under it — see [The note](#the-note).
3. **Untick it** to take the recommendation away again.

**Three at most on one card.** Once three are ticked, every other row greys out
and reads **Remove one to pick another**; untick one of yours and the rest open
up again. A card that already held more than three keeps them all, and nothing
more can be ticked until it is under three.

**Some rows are greyed out with a pill, and they are never hidden**, so you can
see why you cannot pick them:

| The pill | What it means |
| --- | --- |
| **In the pool** | "The filmmaker already entered this award." — they paid for or asked to enter it, or a coordinator put them in. |
| **Remove one to pick another** | You have already picked three. |
| **Added by coordinator** | A coordinator added this pick to your card after you filed it. It stays ticked. |
| **Changed by coordinator** | A coordinator moved a pick on your card to this award after you filed it. It stays ticked. |

**"In the pool" is never another judge's recommendation.** It only ever reflects
what the filmmaker or the festival did.

**A coordinator's pick is not yours to change.** You cannot untick it, move it
or edit its note — not even on a card the festival has sent back to you — and
**it counts toward your three**. A pick the festival has withdrawn no longer
shows on your card at all — and **ticking that award again does not bring it
back**: the tick comes straight back off, and a red line above the blue button
at the bottom of the card reads "A coordinator withdrew this recommendation, so
it cannot be made again on this scorecard." **On a card sent back to you, your
own picks are open again**: tick, untick and rewrite their notes as before. See
[Scorecards sent back to you](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/your-judging-home.md#scorecards-sent-back-to-you).

### The note

Each award you tick opens a box under its row:

> Why this film, in a sentence. Optional.

The note is capped at 280 characters and is **"Seen by the coordinator only,
never by the filmmaker."** It saves about a second and a half after you stop
typing.

The footer keeps a running line — "1 award recommendation goes with this
scorecard." — because the recommendations are filed *with* the card, not
separately.

**If a film's eligibility changes** after you picked an award, that pick moves
to the top of the list, still ticked, named "This award is no longer eligible",
and the scorecard will not file. This holds even when the film is now eligible
for no award at all: the section stays, holding only that pick, so you can
untick it. The refusal does not explain itself — you get the general "This card
could not be filed" line — so if a submission refuses to file, check this
section first: untick the stale recommendation and try again.

## Filing it

The card can be submitted once **every question is answered and every feedback
box you are shown has something in it** — and, on a film whose submitter asked
any, once their questions are answered too. The button reads **Submit creative
scorecard**, and the line at the foot tracks it: "4 of 6 scored, feedback
incomplete", then "All 6 scored, feedback complete". On a scorecard with no
feedback boxes the line leaves feedback out altogether — "All 6 scored". On a
film with the filmmaker's block, that line ends with it — "All 6 scored,
feedback complete, 1 of 2 filmmaker questions".

The confirmation before filing says what goes with the card, naming only the
boxes you were given: "It goes to the coordinator as it stands. Your scores,
both feedback fields and any award recommendations go with it." — "your
positive feedback" or "your opportunities for improvement" when the scorecard
asks for one box, and "Your scores and any award recommendations go with it."
when it asks for none.

After submitting, the card locks. Scores, choices, boxes and notes all become
read-only, and **the award list shrinks to the awards you picked** — no search,
nothing to tick, each note read-only. A card filed with no picks reads "No
awards recommended. Leaving this empty is a normal outcome." in place of the
list — or, on a film eligible for no award, shows no award section at all. The
feedback boxes keep a line saying where they go:

> Filed with the card. Shared with the submitter after coordinator review.

**A few seconds after you submit, your feedback is proofread** for spelling,
grammar and punctuation, and the corrections replace the text on the filed
card — see [After you file](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/scoring-a-film.md#after-you-file).

**There is no unfiling and no editing.** If something in a filed card is wrong,
message the festival.

If you also hold the technical card on this film, a green strip appears on it
confirming the creative card is in, with its figure and a reminder that the
technical card is still yours to file — or not.