Emails your festival sends
FilmScorecard sends a good many emails on your festival's behalf — to the filmmakers who entered, to your judges, and to your own team. This guide is the list of them: what each is called, who gets it, and what sends it. It also covers Preview email on Settings → Emails, and how the list lines up with the record of emails on each submission.
Only two of them have settings. The submission page link and the Scorecard ready email can go out on their own, so the Emails tab of Settings gives each a card — see Emails. The submission page link's card decides whether it goes on its own, as each submission arrives, or only when you send it. Scorecard ready goes as each scorecard is released, so its card sets the same release setting as the Results tab and holds the promo code it carries. Every other email goes because somebody pressed a button or something happened, and needs no setting. What any email says is decided by FilmScorecard, the same for every festival.
Finding the tab
Settings → Emails, between Results and Season actions:
/org/<organization>/<festival>/<season>/settings?tab=emails
It opens for the same people as the rest of Settings — owners, org admins and festival admins, or anybody else holding Edit festival settings and team on the season. See Who can open it.
It holds two cards, one for each email that sends itself: Step 1 · First contact, for the submission page link, and Step 2 · Scorecards ready, for Scorecard ready. Each card's head carries a status pill, a Preview email button, a sentence saying what the email is for, and two lines — Who gets it and What's in it — and the settings follow under them. The cards field by field are in Festival settings.
Every email, and what sends it
The three lists below, one per audience, are the same in every season of the festival. Each email's name is the one the rest of FilmScorecard uses for it, including each submission's Audit tab.
Filmmakers
| Who gets it | What sends it | |
|---|---|---|
| Submission page link | The submitter | The automatic send as each submission arrives, or Send to N now (both on Settings → Emails), or Email submission links on Submissions |
| New link | The submitter | Email me a new link, pressed by the filmmaker on their submission page or scorecard, or Resend access link on Orders |
| Scorecard ready | The submitter | Release scorecards or Release the rest (Settings → Results), Release scorecard on one submission, or the season's release setting (Settings → Results, or When it sends on Settings → Emails) |
| Receipt | The submitter | A scorecard purchase, or Resend receipt on Orders |
| Promo code | Submitters the code covers, except anyone unsubscribed | Email this code on Promo codes |
The guides behind them: Inviting submitters for the submission page link, Getting into your scorecard for the new link, What a submitter gets for the scorecard-ready email, Paying for your scorecard for the receipt, and Emailing a code for the promo code.
Where each button lands
Every filmmaker email but the receipt signs the filmmaker in from its button. Where each lands:
| The filmmaker lands on | |
|---|---|
| Scorecard ready, with or without a promo code | Their submission page, with Your scorecard is in across the top. Its View scorecard opens the scorecard, still priced with the email's promo code when it carried one. |
| Promo code | The same: the submission page, with Your scorecard is in at the top and the code carried on to the scorecard. |
| Submission page link | Their submission page, with the press kit at the top. |
| New link | The page they asked for it from. |
| Receipt | The scorecard itself. |
A link in an email sent before October 10, 2026 lands where it always did. The wording of every email is unchanged. From the scorecard, ← Your submission in its top bar goes back to the submission page. See Getting into your scorecard for the filmmaker's side.
Judges
| Who gets it | What sends it | |
|---|---|---|
| Invitation to judge | The invited judge | Invite judges or Resend invite on Judges |
| Application accepted | The applicant | Accept on a judge application (Judges, Requests) |
| Counter offer | The applicant | Send counter on a judge application (Judges, Requests) |
| Application declined | The applicant | Decline request on a judge application (Judges, Requests) |
| Message about an application | The applicant | Send message on a judge application (Judges, Requests) |
| Invitation withdrawn | The invited judge | Revoke invite on Judges |
| Scorecard sent back | The judge who filed it | Send back to judge on Review Queue |
| Reminder about a returned scorecard | The judge who filed it | Remind on a returned scorecard (Review Queue) |
| Film back after a problem | The judge who reported the problem | Send back on a reported problem (Review Queue, Issues) |
| Message from your team | The judge written to | A message to a judge from Inbox |
| Invoice returned | The judge who sent it | Return on an invoice (Payouts, Invoices) |
| Invoice paid | The judge who sent it | Mark paid on an invoice, or a payment recorded against it (Payouts) |
| Categories changed | A judge who has accepted | Saving a judge's categories on Judges, or attaching a category to the season (Settings, Categories) |
| Announcement | The judges it is posted to | Post announcement on Announcements |
Your team
| Who gets it | What sends it | |
|---|---|---|
| Team invitation | The person invited | Invite people (Organization settings) |
| Judge accepted | Staff on the season | A judge accepts their invitation |
| Applicant answered your counter | Staff on the season | An applicant accepts or answers a counter offer |
| Judge paused | Staff on the judge's festivals | A judge pauses new assignments |
| Judge asked to leave | Staff on the season | A judge asks to leave a season |
| Message from a judge | The staff member written to | A judge writes to you in Messages |
| Message from a filmmaker | The season's questions address, or else your organization's support address | A filmmaker presses Send message in Contact the festival, on their submission page or scorecard |
| Problem reported with a film | Staff on the season | A judge reports a problem with a film |
| Film skipped for a problem | Staff on the season | A judge skips a film because it will not play, or for another problem — unless that judge's reported problem on the same film is still open, which was emailed already |
| FilmFreeway needs attention | Staff on the season | A first FilmFreeway sync brings submissions in, or a sync finds something new to look at, or pauses |
| Scorecard sold | Owners and admins | A scorecard purchase |
| Payout account disconnected | Owners and admins | The Stripe payout account is disconnected |
| Payout account connected | Owners and admins | A Stripe payout account is connected |
The FilmFreeway email
For a season connected to FilmFreeway — see Connecting FilmFreeway. One email per sync, never one per film, and only from a sync that brought its first films in, found something new or paused the connection. A sync with nothing new sends nothing.
The first sync after Start syncing sends its own version once its films are in — after an Undo sync and a fresh start too — as long as it brought at least one submission in or left a category waiting:
- The subject is "FilmFreeway's first sync for your festival and season".
- The headline says what came in — "FilmFreeway brought 48 submissions into your festival and season." — and, when any are waiting, "3 categories need matching." follows it.
- Anything it found on those films is listed under it, the same way as below.
- Its button, Open the FilmFreeway tab, opens the FilmFreeway tab of the season's Settings.
A first sync that brought nothing in and left nothing waiting sends nothing. A first sync that paused sends the paused email below instead.
Every later sync that finds something new or pauses sends the usual version:
- The subject is "FilmFreeway needs your attention for your festival and season", or "FilmFreeway syncing has paused for your festival and season" when the sync paused.
- What it found, one line each: films withdrawn on FilmFreeway, disqualified on FilmFreeway, moved out of a category on FilmFreeway or no longer on FilmFreeway, and categories that need matching — "2 films withdrawn on FilmFreeway". A paused sync says why, and the one thing to do there.
- Its button, Open the FilmFreeway tab, opens the FilmFreeway tab of the season's Settings.
In both versions:
- When films are named, it adds "Nothing has changed on these films here." and a link under the button, see these films on Submissions, opens the Submissions list filtered to them.
- A film the sync withdrew is not named. When a filmmaker withdraws on FilmFreeway, the sync withdraws the film here itself, unless a judge has started scoring it or its scorecard has been unlocked — see FilmFreeway notices. Only the films it leaves to you are counted as withdrawn on FilmFreeway. The sync changes no film's status in any other case, and never its categories; that is left to you.
Each person can turn it off for themselves — FilmFreeway needs attention, on the Notifications tab of Your account settings.
The sync emails no filmmaker. A film it brings in is an ordinary film from then on, so the filmmaker emails above reach it the way they reach any other.
The message from a filmmaker
Filmmakers can write to you with Contact the festival — on their submission page, and at the foot of their scorecard. Each message is one email.
- It goes to the season's questions address — the Contact email on Settings — or, when that is blank, to your organization's support address. The address is read as the email goes out, so a change you make takes effect straight away.
- With neither address set, filmmakers have no form. Contact the festival is not drawn on their submission page or their scorecard.
- Its subject is "Alex Rivera sent a message about The Long Field
(SUB-40318)", and it comes from "Alex Rivera via FilmScorecard" — or,
when your record holds no name for the filmmaker, "A filmmaker sent…" from
FilmScorecard. It
carries the film, the
SUB-number, the categories, the topic the filmmaker chose — Their entry, Awards, Their scorecard or Something else — who it is from, and their whole message. - Reply in your own mail program. Replies go to the filmmaker's address, and the Reply by email button does the same. There is no inbox for these messages in FilmScorecard.
- Each submission's Audit tab notes that the filmmaker wrote, with the topic — "messaged the festival · Their scorecard" — never the message itself.
- A filmmaker can send five a day from one submission.
Preview
Preview email shows the email as it is sent, built from the same template the real one uses — not a picture of it. It is on the Emails tab, for the two emails there: the submission page link and Scorecard ready.
- Press Preview email at the top right of a card. The submission page link has the same preview on the season overview, as Preview the email, while the season has not decided how it sends — see Deciding on the season overview.
- A window opens, headed with your festival's logo (or its initials), your festival's name and the email's name.
- Under the heading, Subject: and the subject line, then the email itself in a frame you can scroll.
- Close — or Escape — puts it away.
What you are looking at:
- Your festival's name, the season you are in, and your organization's mailing address are filled in, wherever the email prints them.
- Everyone else is a sample. The filmmaker is Alex Rivera, the film is The
Long Field in Drama Film, and the access code is
K7M2P9QRT. No real submission is read. - Every button and link in a preview opens FilmScorecard's home page, never a real scorecard or record. The frame does not run anything from the email.
- It is one example of each email. Both come in more than one version: the scorecard-ready email changes with whether the filmmaker asked the judges questions and whether a promo code went with it; the submission page link changes with whether judging has started and what the filmmaker has left blank. The preview shows one of them — the real email picks its version for each filmmaker as it is sent.
"The preview could not be loaded.", with Try again, means the preview itself could not be fetched. Nothing is wrong with the email.
What is not listed
- Emails FilmScorecard sends for itself rather than for your festival — log-in codes, beta-access emails, messages to FilmScorecard's own team, and messages visitors send a filmmaker through their own film page.
- Anything with no email in it. Imports, duplicating a season and deleting a festival send nothing. A FilmFreeway sync sends nothing but the one email to your team.
Where a sent email is recorded
The Emails tab says when the two automatic emails go; it never says who was sent one — beyond the Sent so far count on Step 1 · First contact. For that, each submission's Audit tab lists every email sent to its filmmaker about it — the submission page link, a new link, the scorecard-ready email, the receipt and a promo code — by the same names as this guide. Each is one entry by FilmScorecard: "FilmScorecard sent the Receipt email", or "could not send…" when the send failed, or "did not send…" when it was passed by. Once the provider has reported, the sentence ends with the newest report — "…, which was delivered" or "…, which bounced". Under the sentence, in this order:
- To — the address.
- Queued — when the send was set up.
- Sent, Failed, or Not sent with the reason — with its time.
- What the email provider reported afterwards — Delivered, Delayed, Bounced or Marked as spam, each with its time. A bounce adds an amber note with the provider's reason, in the provider's own words.
Only emails sent since FilmScorecard began tracking delivery get that last line. An older entry stops at Sent, and always will. See Emails on the Audit tab.
A bounced email still counts as sent. It is not tried again, and the Audit tab is the only place the bounce shows.
Emails to judges and to your team are not recorded anywhere you can read, and nothing reports whether they were delivered.
Opens and clicks
No email FilmScorecard sends can tell whether it was opened, or whether its button was pressed. Nothing in any email tracks the reader. What the Audit tab shows instead is the filmmaker arriving:
- An entry when they open their scorecard or their submission page, one a day for each — "opened the submission page 3 times", with every time listed. A page counts only once it has been on their screen for two seconds, so a mail service checking a link on its way in is not mistaken for them.
- A line naming the email they came from, when they came by an email's button or link — "Opened from the Scorecard ready email". Each of the five filmmaker emails above names itself in its link; links in emails sent before this began name nothing.
- Nobody else counts. You and your team opening a filmmaker's page — see Seeing what a submitter sees — leave no entry.
How this is put to filmmakers is in the Privacy Policy.
What the Emails tab does not do
- Turn any other email off. Only the submission page link and Scorecard ready have cards here, and even those decide whether and when the email goes on its own, not whether it exists — and for Scorecard ready, when is the season's release setting, the same one the Results tab sets. Every other email goes when what sends it happens — a button somebody presses, a purchase, a judge's reply. See Inviting submitters and Releasing scorecards.
- Change the wording, add your own text, or attach anything — except a promo code on the automatic Scorecard ready emails, which an owner or org admin can choose there. The one email your organization writes itself is a promo code's — see Emailing a code.
- Preview any other email. Preview email is only on the two cards.
- Send a test, to you or anybody else.
- Keep copies of what was sent. No sent email is stored, here or on a submission.
- Show opens or clicks — nothing anywhere does. What each submission's Audit tab shows instead is in Opens and clicks.
Related guides
- Festival settings — the Emails tab's two cards field by field, and the rest of the Settings screen.
- Opening a submission — the Audit tab, where each email about one submission is recorded, with what the email provider reported about it.
- Inviting submitters — when the submission page link goes out on its own, and what it says.
- Releasing scorecards — the scorecard-ready email, and including a promo code in it.
- Getting into your scorecard — the button and the access code every filmmaker email carries, from the filmmaker's side.
- Connecting FilmFreeway — the sync behind the FilmFreeway needs attention email, and the tab it sends you to.