Festival settings

Settings is where a festival's own details are kept: its name and web address, and whether it has a public page; what the season you are standing in is called, its description, location and contact address, its time zone and every date it keeps; the rules judging follows; and when results reach filmmakers. It is also where a season's categories and awards get their fees and prices, where a season's judges get their pay rates, where a season is opened to judge applications, where a season's submitters are invited to their submission pages, where a season's scorecards are released to the people who submitted them, where you decide when the two emails that send themselves go out, where the festival's FilmFreeway account is connected, and where the three big one-way actions live.

The screen has nine tabs — eight on the rare screen with no FilmFreeway tab (see FilmFreeway). Festival, Season, Judging, Results and Emails each save with one Save changes bar that appears at the bottom of the screen while the tab has unsaved changes; Categories and Awards keep a Save button on their own cards; FilmFreeway does each thing the moment you press its button; and Season actions only acts through confirmation dialogs. Knowing which is which is most of what this guide is for.

Finding the screen

Settings is the last row in the season block of the left navigation, under Awards. It opens the season you are currently in:

/org/<organization>/<festival>/<season>/settings

While the FilmFreeway tab has something waiting for you, the Settings row carries the same amber count — see FilmFreeway — and opens straight on that tab instead.

Each tab has its own address, so you can bookmark one or send it to a colleague, and reloading keeps you where you were:

An address with no tab, or with a tab name FilmScorecard does not recognise, opens Festival rather than an error — and so does the FilmFreeway address on a screen that has no FilmFreeway tab. The Results tab's address still ends tab=submitter, so a bookmark saved before the tab was renamed keeps working.

The season home's Set dates button opens the Season tab, where the judging dates are — see Finishing setup.

On Festival, Season, Judging, Results and Emails, every setting is a row. On the left, its name and a sentence or two saying what it does and where it shows up; on the right, the control, with a line under it stating the result — the address a page will live at, the date a choice depends on, how far a send has got. There is nothing to press to read what a setting does.

Each of those five tabs opens with one sentence saying which seasons it applies to: "These settings apply to every season of your festival. Changes also show on past seasons' scorecards and emails." on Festival, and "These settings apply to the Spring 2026 season only. Other seasons keep their own." on Season, Judging and Results. Emails says the same in its own words.

Who can open it

Organization owners, org admins, and festival admins — anybody holding Edit festival settings and team on the season, with a role that can change it. See Festival access. Everyone else is kept out:

• Coordinators, programmers and viewers do not have the Settings row in their sidebar, and opening the address takes them to the season's dashboard instead.
• Anyone outside your organization sees the same "page not found" as a mistyped address. Your festival's existence is never revealed.
• A logged-out visitor is sent to the log-in screen first.

Attaching categories and awards from your organization's library takes an owner or org admin as well — see A season's categories and awards.

Every change on this screen is checked again when it is saved, so a refusal is a refusal however the change was attempted.

The header

Above the tabs, Settings on the left and a judging pill on the right. The festival and season you are in are named in the switchers in the top bar, not here. The pill has three possible readings, worked out from the Judging dates — Opens and Closes — on the Season tab:

• Judging not scheduled — no opening date has been set, or it is still ahead.
• Judging open — indigo, with a solid dot. The opening date has passed and the closing date has not — on a season that has been opened. A season still in draft never reads Judging open, whatever its dates; see When judging counts as open.
• Judging closed — the closing date has passed, or the season is still in draft with its opening date behind it.

On a draft season the banner sits above all of this. Every screen of a season nobody has opened judging on — this one included — carries a banner across the top: "Judging hasn't started. Judges see no films until you open judging.", turning amber once the opening date has passed. See Opening judging.

The two save models

Five tabs save with one bar. Festival, Season, Judging, Results and Emails each have a single Save for everything on the tab. While the tab matches what is stored there is no bar, and the tab ends with a quiet line instead — "All changes saved. Last saved Aug 6, 2026, 10:04 AM". The moment you change anything:

• a bar appears, floating at the bottom of the screen: an amber dot, Unsaved changes on Season — naming the tab — Discard and Save changes. It stays in reach while the tab scrolls under it, and settles under the last card at the end of the page;
• a small amber dot appears next to that tab's name, so unsaved work is visible from any other tab.

Discard puts everything on the tab back to its last saved values, with no confirmation. Save changes saves every card on the tab that has a change, one after another, and reads Saving… while it works. When it is done the bar goes and the "Last saved" time moves.

A card that is refused stays unsaved, and the others still save. Save carries on past a refusal: each card saves on its own, so one card's problem never throws away another card's work. The refused card shows why — under the field, or in amber at the top of the card — and the bar stays, adding "Some changes weren't saved. The card above says why."

Some mistakes stop Save before it starts. A setting that is wrong on screen — a season with no name, shares that do not add up to 100, a judge call missing something it needs to be listed — is marked in amber as soon as it is wrong. Save changes is then greyed out, with "Fix the highlighted setting before saving.", until you fix it or discard. That holds back the whole tab, not only the card with the mistake.

On a tab with more than one card, the cards fold away. On Season, Judging, Results and Emails every card starts collapsed, showing its title, its status pill if it has one, and the sentence saying what it is for — and on some, a line or two more, such as who gets an email. Click the title to open the card, and again to fold it. A card that needs you opens itself — one holding a highlighted mistake or a refused save — and a folded card holding unsaved edits shows an amber dot beside its title. The Festival tab's one card, Festival profile, is always open.

One setting is on two tabs. When scorecards become available is set on Results, and the Emails tab's Step 2 · Scorecards ready card sets the same choice as When it sends, because that email goes out as each scorecard is released. Save a change on either tab and the other shows it.

A Save made in several parts may save some of your change. On the Season tab the description, location and contact email are written first, then the two judging times, then the name, year, time zone and the other dates; if a later part is refused, the earlier parts are already saved, and the message points at the field still to correct. On Judging and Emails each card saves on its own, so one can save while the other is refused.

Categories and Awards keep a Save button on their own card. Every change on them — a typed judge pay rate, the season's Paid or Volunteer setting, Reset pay to library, attaching and detaching — shows on screen at once and is stored when you choose Save categories or Save awards in the card's footer, which has its own Discard; the tab's amber dot works the same way as everywhere else. See A season's categories and awards and Judge pay.

Two tabs do neither. Season actions never saves anything directly: each of its three buttons opens a confirmation dialog first. See Season and festival actions. FilmFreeway has no Save at all: each of its buttons, and each category choice on it, takes effect the moment you make it, so it never shows the bar or the amber dot. See FilmFreeway.

Switching tabs is always safe

Moving between tabs never prompts and never loses an edit — your unsaved work stays on its tab with its dot showing until you save or discard it.

Leaving the screen does prompt. With anything unsaved, clicking a navigation row, closing the tab or reloading raises a plain browser confirmation:

You have unsaved changes on this page. Leave without saving them?

Cancel and you stay, with the edit intact. Accept and the edit is gone. The dialog is the browser's own, so it looks different in each browser and cannot be restyled.

The saved-at line

A tab with nothing unsaved ends with "All changes saved." and the time of its last save — "Last saved Aug 6, 2026, 10:04 AM" — shown in the season's own time zone.

Season, Judging, Results and Emails are stored in one record, so they share that time: saving any of them moves it on all of them. The Festival tab keeps its own. The Judging tab shows whichever is later, the season's time or the open judge call's, because the call is a record of its own.

Saving the festival's public page moves these times too. The page's Save changes writes the same festival and season records — see The public festival page — so a "Last saved" time nobody remembers here may be an edit made on the page.

Festival

Festival profile — "How your festival is named and presented to judges, submitters and the public." — belongs to the festival: changing it changes what every past and future season shows, which is what the tab's opening sentence says. What belongs to one season — its description, location and contact email — is on the Season tab's About this season card.

The FilmFreeway card is no longer on this tab. Connecting the festival's FilmFreeway account has a tab of its own — see FilmFreeway. The Festival profile's FilmFreeway submission link row stays here, and saves with this tab's Save changes: it only tells filmmakers where to enter, and has nothing to do with the connection.

The scorecard preview, beside the logo slot, shows the logo, the festival's name and "SCORECARD · Spring 2026", with "How the top of a scorecard will look." under it. It re-draws as you type — it shows the current contents of the fields, not the saved ones, so you can see a change before committing it.

Changing the public address

The public address is the middle part of every address for this festival. The field takes only what an address can hold, as you type — capitals become lower case, a space becomes a hyphen, and anything else is dropped — and the line under it shows the result as the address of the festival's public page: filmscorecard.com/f/<organization>/<festival>.

Three things it refuses:

• an address with no letters or numbers in it at all;
• one of the six names FilmScorecard's own organization screens use — categories, scorecards, judges, settings, festivals, overview;
• an address another festival in your organization already has.

Saving a new address moves the festival, and the screen goes with it: you land on Settings at the new address. The old address stops working immediately — there is no forwarding — so any link or bookmark anyone saved to the old one will show "page not found". Tell whoever has one.

That includes the public page. It moves to the new address with everything else, and every link to the old one — shared with judges, posted, or sitting in somebody's inbox — answers "page not found". See The public festival page.

The logo

The square slot holds one image per festival. With none uploaded it shows a striped placeholder reading "FESTIVAL LOGO / SQUARE"; the row's sentence says what to bring — "Use a square image at least 512 pixels wide, as PNG, JPEG or WebP."

1. Choose Add a logo (or Replace logo if there is one already) and pick a file.
2. The slot and the scorecard preview both show it straight away. Nothing is stored yet — the tab is now unsaved, like any other change.
3. Choose Save changes on the bar at the bottom of the screen.

Rules, checked in the browser and again on the server:

• PNG, JPEG or WebP only. SVG is deliberately refused.
• 4 MB maximum, measured on the file you pick.

Your browser shrinks it before it is sent: to at most 512 pixels on its longest side, saved as a PNG so a transparent background survives. If the browser cannot do that, the file is sent as you picked it — and then it must be under 1 MB on its own. A bigger one is refused in amber at the top of the card, "That image couldn't be resized for upload. Choose one under 1 MB.", and the save does not go through.

There is no Remove button — a logo can be replaced but not taken away, and saving other fields never disturbs it.

The festival's public page can replace it too, with Replace logo in its edit mode. It is the same logo either way: whichever was saved last is the one on scorecards, film pages and the public page. See Images.

One thing to know about replacing a logo. The image is uploaded before the rest of the card is written. If the same save is then refused — most likely because the public address you also changed is already taken — the new logo has already replaced the old one even though the save failed. Save again with a valid address and everything lines up.

What is stored and what is shown

The festival name and the public address are used throughout FilmScorecard. On filmmakers' public film pages your festival appears as a laurel with its name, the season's year and the film's first category — see The public film page. Neither the logo nor the website is used on those pages.

The festival's own public page uses the name, the logo, the website and the FilmFreeway submission link from this card, and the season's description, location and contact email from the Season tab — once the Public festival page switch is on. See The public festival page.

The season's description and location are shown to judges on its open judge call — on the call's own page, where the description shows two lines with a More that opens the rest, and beside the application — when the season has one; see Opening a judge call. The contact email reaches submitters in the places listed under About this season. None of the three is on the scorecard preview on this tab.

Season

Everything about the season you are in, on two cards under the tab's opening sentence: About this season says what the season is, and Dates holds every date it keeps, with the time zone they are read in. Both start folded. Saving writes this season alone — every other season of the festival keeps its own — and when you start next season it begins as a copy of them.

The two cards are one form. One Save changes stores whatever you changed on either of them, and one Discard puts both back.

About this season

Its sentence: "The basics judges and submitters see for this season."

The description, location and contact email may all be left blank. Until recently they had a card of their own, Season identity, on the first tab; they are the same fields. The time zone used to sit on this card; it is on Dates now.

The limit was 160 until recently. A description stored longer than 640 still loads whole and still shows wherever it did, but its count reads in red, the box will not take another character, and Save changes is held for the whole tab — "Fix the highlighted setting before saving." — until it is trimmed to 640 or fewer, whatever else on the tab you changed. The festival's public page and the Add festival form hold it to the same 640.

A season saved without a name before names were required shows the amber line as soon as the tab opens, and in the same way nothing on the tab saves until you give it one.

The description, location and contact email are on the festival's public page as well. The description is its hero line, wrapped to two lines with a More that opens the rest when it runs longer, the location is in the hero and in its Details card, and the contact email is its Festival office address — and the page edits the same values, so a change on either side is a change on both. See The public festival page.

Where these came from. Seasons that existed before these fields did took their festival's tagline and location, and a season with no contact address took the festival's old public contact email. A festival made with Create festival or Add festival writes what you typed on that form into its first season. A season made from another one — by Duplicate season or Start a new season — copies that season's description, location and contact email.

Renaming a season moves its address

A season's part of the web address is built from its name and year, so changing either one changes the address of every screen in that season.

FilmScorecard takes you to the new address when you save — the same thing it does when you change the festival's public address. There is nothing to do, but any bookmarks or links you had saved to the old address stop working, so update them.

A cosmetic edit that does not change the address — trimming spaces, say — leaves you where you are.

When the year locks

The Season year becomes a padlocked value instead of a field for one reason: judging is open — opened on the season's dashboard, and inside its dates. The line under it reads "Locked while judging is open."

The lock is applied when the change is saved as well as on screen, so it holds however the change is attempted. A season that already holds submissions may still change its year — the submissions stay with the season, and the page's address moves the way it does when the season name changes. Nothing else on the tab locks: the season name, time zone and every date on the Dates card stay editable throughout.

Choosing a time zone

The Time zone row is on the Dates card. Its field opens a list with a search box at the top rather than a plain dropdown. It offers about forty main time zones, each by the name people use and a city or two — "Central Time (Chicago, Dallas)", "UK and Ireland (London, Dublin)". The US zones come first, starting with Eastern Time, then UTC, then the rest of the world from west to east. There is no blank choice.

A season already saved on a zone the list leaves out keeps it. That zone is the first row, under its everyday name and then its standard one — "Eastern Time, America/Detroit" — and saving without touching it works as it always did. A zone with no everyday name shows the standard name alone.

1. Click the field. The list opens under it with the search box ready to type in.
2. Type any part of a zone's name or one of its cities. Case does not matter, so central, chicago, new york and london all find what you mean.
3. Choose the row. The list closes and the field shows your pick — the tab is now unsaved, like any other change.

If nothing matches, the list reads No match for "…". with a Clear search link; it is never simply empty. Escape clears what you typed if there is any, and closes the list if there is not. Clicking anywhere else closes it too. Opening it again always starts from the full list.

A season still on UTC says so. While the field reads UTC, the line under it reads "UTC is what a new season starts with. Pick the time zone your festival runs in." A festival created now — with Add festival, or as your first festival when you set up your organization — starts its first season in the time zone of the browser it was created in instead — see Adding a festival — so this line is mostly for older seasons, and for a browser whose zone FilmScorecard did not recognise.

The Start a new season page's Time zone works the same way, prefilled from the season you are modelling it on — see Season and festival actions.

Changing the time zone

Changing the time zone re-labels the times already stored; it never moves them. A judging opening saved as 9:00 in Los Angeles reads as noon after you switch the season to New York — the same moment, named differently. Times you type afterwards are read in the new zone. The moment you pick a different zone, the line under the field says so: "Changing the time zone doesn't move a saved time, only how it reads. Check the judging times after you save."

Notification date and Award winners announced are read in it too. A public film page decides whether a date has arrived by asking what day it is in the season's zone, so a festival in Auckland announces some hours before one in Los Angeles that set the same date. The festival's own public page greys its past dates by the same zone.

Dates

Every date the season keeps, and the time zone they are read in. Its sentence: "The deadlines and milestones that run this season, and the time zone they're in." The rows run in this order, the festival itself first, and each row's own sentence says what its date does.

The two judging dates used to be on the Judging tab. They are the same dates, they do the same things, and they save with the Season tab; the Judging tab now holds only the rules judging follows.

The two Event dates replace the old Festival dates box, which took free text. What was typed there is not turned into dates. While both date fields are empty, a season that had something in the old box shows it under them — "Until you set these, your public page shows the dates as you first wrote them:" and the old text — so you can see what to enter. Fill in the dates and the line goes. Despite what that line says, the public page does not show the old text: it shows no festival dates at all until Starts is set.

When judging counts as open

Judging is open when two things are true together: somebody has pressed the Open judging card on the season's dashboard, turning the season from a draft into an open one, and the dates on the Dates card are running — the opening date has passed and the closing date has not. That is what judges need before they are offered any film, and it is what Settings reads too: the pill in the header, the locked fields and Close judging all wait for both. Opening judging touches none of these dates, and the dates alone open nothing: a draft season whose opening date has passed still offers judges nothing, and every screen of it carries an amber banner saying judges are waiting. See Opening judging.

While judging is open, two fields lock

A season still in draft never locks, whatever its dates say, and its pill reads Judging closed, as on the Season overview. Once judging is open, two fields become fixed values, and each says so on its own row — no notice heads either card:

• the Season year on this tab, with "Locked while judging is open." under it;
• the Creative row's Judges figure on the Judging tab's Scoring card, with "The creative judge count is locked while judging is open." at the foot of its table.

The Dates card's Judging row gains a Close judging now link under its sentence — see Closing judging. Everything else stays editable, including Skipping a submission, the shares (until a scorecard has been released — see When the weights lock) and the whole open judge call card.

Both judging times stay editable. Push the closing time further into the future and judging simply keeps running; pull it into the past and judging closes. The opening time can be corrected too: moving it past the current moment holds judging until then. The line under the two says both: "Moving the opening time later holds judging until then. Moving the closing time into the future keeps it open."

Re-opening judging

Because judging is worked out from the dates, setting the closing date back into the future re-opens judging on a season you have already opened. That is intended, not a loophole: it is how you extend a judging period you closed too early. The pill returns to Judging open and the two fields lock again. It also unlocks the press kit's points until the new closing time passes — see Freezing the press kit when judging closes.

Closing judging

Close judging is only offered while judging is open — on an opened season, inside its dates. On a draft season there is nothing to close: no judge can score on it.

1. Choose Close judging now, under the Judging row's sentence on the Season tab's Dates card.
2. A dialog opens: "Close judging now?" — "Judges can no longer score submissions, and the season year and the number of creative judges can change again. You can re-open judging by moving the closing time into the future." — with the currently scheduled closing time on its monospace line ("Scheduled to close …").
3. Choose Close judging.

That sets the closing time to this moment. The Close judging now link goes, the two fields unlock, the pill reads Judging closed, and Archive season becomes available on Season actions.

It is checked again when you confirm. A dialog left open on a season that has since closed, or one that was never opened, is refused with "Judging is not open, so there is nothing to close." and nothing moves.

One consequence to check first. If the season releases scorecards When judging closes — on the Results tab — then closing judging, here or by pulling the closing date into the past, opens every eligible scorecard in the season to its submitter straight away, and their results emails follow. If you are not ready for that, move the season to Only when I release them and save before you close. See Releasing scorecards. It also locks the section weights, for the same reason.

On As each submission is approved, closing judging is not a release trigger: it is what lets the season be marked released once every submission is out — see As each submission is approved.

Closing judging does not close your judge call, and closing your judge call does not close judging. They are two independent dates: judging closes here, and the call's Applications close is on the Judging tab.

FilmFreeway

The tab after Categories connects the festival's FilmFreeway account, so its submissions come into one season by themselves every six hours, with a Sync now for in between. It used to be a card on the Festival tab; the Festival tab's FilmFreeway submission link row is a different thing and stayed there. Everything on this tab is in Connecting FilmFreeway.

• It belongs to the festival, not to one season: every season's Settings shows the same tab, and the films go into the one season you choose.
• It has no save bar. Connect, Sync now, each category choice, Remove key and Undo sync each take effect the moment you make them, and nothing on the tab is touched by Discard.
• Its label carries an amber count while something there needs a person — a category waiting to be matched, a film FilmFreeway has flagged, or a pause — visible from whichever tab is open.
• It is on every organization's Settings unless FilmScorecard has turned FilmFreeway sync off for yours. Then it shows only while there is something to clean up — a saved key, or films the sync brought in — and offers nothing but Remove key and Undo sync; with nothing to clean up there is no FilmFreeway tab, and …/settings?tab=filmfreeway opens Festival. See When FilmFreeway sync is turned off for your organization.
• Its times are in your own time zone, not the season's, unlike the rest of this screen.

Judging

Two cards under the tab's opening sentence: Scoring — the rules judging follows — and, under it, the season's Open judge call. Both start folded. The dates judging runs between are on the Season tab's Dates card.

The Scoring card's sentence: "How judges score this season's submissions, and how their scores add up." Four rows:

What a judge is paid is not on this tab. It belongs to the season's categories — see Judge pay — and what any one judge is paid belongs to their invitation, see What an invitation pays.

There is no Written comment rule any more. The tab used to carry a Written comment select — Optional, Required on every scorecard, or Required when a score is below 3 — and it never changed what a judge had to write. It is gone from this tab, from the Start a new season page and from season duplication. What a judge writes is now decided by the creative scorecard itself: its two written-feedback switches, Positive Feedback and Opportunities for Improvement, set in the scorecard builder. A box whose switch is on is shown to every judge filing on that scorecard and must be filled in before the card can be filed; a box whose switch is off is not shown and not asked for. See Written feedback.

There is no Reminder to judges setting any more. The card used to offer reminders — weekly, or every three days in the final week — but no reminder was ever sent, so the choice has been taken off the screen. FilmScorecard sends judges no progress reminders.

Judges per category

Creative's Judges number counts per category. The figure sits in the Judges column of the Creative row, in the How a score is made up table, and the row's sentence says so — "The creative count is for each category a submission is in." It is how many creative scorecards each category a submission competes in needs. It used to be called Judges per film, and the queue followed that name: a film stopped being offered to judges once that many judges had it, however many categories it competed in. It now works per category — the way a score, the Scores in ticks and a finished season have always counted it — so a film in two categories stays on offer until each of them has its full panel.

Four things follow:

• One judge takes one creative card on a film, for one of its categories. At 3, a film in two categories needs six creative scorecards, which is six different judges unless your own team fills some of the places.
• A creative scorecard your own team files counts toward the number exactly as a judge's does — see Filling out a scorecard yourself.
• A judge scoped to one category stops being offered a film once that category is full, even while the film's other category is still short.
• Judges are given the category that is furthest behind when they take a film, so a two-category film's panels fill evenly.

How the number, the order and a judge's scope combine to decide what each judge is offered is on How the judging queue works. Whether your roster has enough judges to meet the number at all is on the season's dashboard — see The two warnings.

Section weights

For the model behind these numbers, with one film worked through and how to fit your festival's own way of judging into it, see How scoring works.

The Counts for column of the Scoring card's How a score is made up table holds the three shares — the season's section weights — for Creative, Technical and Press kit, with a running line under the table: "The shares add up to 100%." The weights are the one setting that decides what a score means at your festival.

Every category a submission can be scored in is scored out of 100. Each of the three kinds of scorecard earns a share of that 100, in proportion to what was marked on it. A technical card worth 20 points, on which a reviewer passed 15, earns three quarters of the Technical share.

A score is what has been earned so far, and the Creative share is divided among the panel. The technical and press-kit reviews are filed once for a submission, so the whole of their share lands when that one review is approved. The Creative share is split equally between the judges Judges per category expects in that category, and each approved creative scorecard earns one of those shares — so a film with one of three judges in carries a third of the Creative share and grows as the other two are approved. See Overall is points banked, not a forecast.

A new season starts at 60 Creative / 20 Technical / 20 Press kit. Change them to anything you like, as long as the three add up to 100:

1. Type over the three Counts for figures. The line under the table keeps count as you type, and turns amber while the three do not add up — "The shares add up to 90%. They need to add up to 100%." Meanwhile Save changes is greyed out, with "Fix the highlighted setting before saving."
2. Once they make 100, choose Save changes on the bar at the bottom of the screen.

Six things worth knowing:

• They are shares, not fixed points. A category renormalizes over the sections it actually uses, so on a 60/20/20 season a category with no press kit is scored Creative 75 and Technical 25 — and still out of 100. The split one category ends up with is written out on its own section of a submission's Scoring tab.
• Zero is allowed, and it means "collected but not scored". A section weighted 0 is still judged, the filmmaker still reads it, and a submission is still not complete until it is filed — it simply adds nothing to the score.
• Judges per category is part of this arithmetic, not only of who is offered a film: it is what the Creative share is divided by. It is locked while judging is open, so it cannot move under a score somebody has already read.
• The submissions list calls the press-kit section "Marketing". It is the same section under a different heading; nothing else in FilmScorecard uses that word.
• They change nothing a judge sees or does. Judges never see weights, totals or bands — see Blind judging. Changing the split re-reads every score on your own screens the next time they are drawn; no scorecard is rewritten and no marks move.
• Next season inherits them. Duplicating a season carries its split, like its other rules — see Season and festival actions.

When the weights lock

The split is fixed for good the moment any scorecard reaches a filmmaker — whether that is the season's own release, or one submission released ahead of the rest, by hand or by the As each submission is approved schedule. The three shares become plain figures you cannot type over, the running total goes, and the foot of the table reads "Shares are locked because scorecards have been released." A save that changes them anyway is refused with "Section weights are locked once a scorecard has been released."

That is the one lock on them. They stay editable while judging is open, which the rest of this card does not: a change to the split touches no judge's marks, and until a scorecard is out nobody has read a score it would move. Once one filmmaker has their scorecard — and possibly paid for it — a change would move a percentage and a season rank somebody has already seen.

Every other rule on this card, including Skipping a submission, stays editable after release.

While judging is open, Creative's Judges number locks, and the foot of the table says so — "The creative judge count is locked while judging is open." — beside the shares' own line when both apply. See While judging is open, two fields lock.

Creative judging waits for technical approval

The third row of the Scoring card is a switch, and it is on for every season — seasons that were already judging when it arrived included. While it is on, a judge is offered a film's creative scorecard in a category only once the technical review that category uses has been approved in the Review Queue. Filed is not enough: a technical review waiting for approval, or one you sent back to its judge, keeps the creative scorecard waiting.

• Each category waits on its own. A film in two categories opens in each as the technical review that category uses is approved; two categories sharing one technical scorecard open together.
• A category with no technical scorecard never waits. Its creative scorecards are offered as they always were.
• Your own team is never held. A creative scorecard you fill in yourself can be filed at any time, and a technical review you fill in yourself is approved as you file it, so it opens the film to creative judges at once — see Filling out a scorecard yourself. A film you hand back to a judge from the Issue tab is not held either.
• Work already in a judge's hands is left alone. A judge holding a creative scorecard when the switch goes on can still file it, and one you sent back to them can be filed again. Only new creative scorecards wait.
• An approval can be lost. If the judge who filed an approved technical review later withdraws from the film — a conflict of interest, or a screener that will not play — their review goes with them, and the film's creative scorecards wait again until another technical review is approved.
• Judges are told how many films are waiting, and nothing else. A waiting film counts among a judge's upcoming films, and a judge with nothing else to score is told how many films are waiting for their technical review — never which ones, or who is reviewing them. See Nothing to score right now.
• The season's dashboard tells you when nobody can file the review. Its "No technical judge yet" line then reads "No technical judge yet, so creative judging is on hold" — see The two warnings.

Turning it off opens every waiting creative scorecard the next time each judge looks. The switch is not locked while judging is open, and saves with Save changes like the rest of the tab. Duplicating a season carries it over, on or off — see Season and festival actions.

Blind judging cannot be turned off

The last row of the Scoring card, Blind judging, is a statement, not a setting. Its value is a padlocked Always on, and its sentence reads:

Judges never see each other's scores, averages or names. This is how FilmScorecard works, so it can't be turned off.

There is no control behind it anywhere in FilmScorecard.

The open judge call

The second card on this tab, headed Open judge call — with its CALL- code once it exists, and a pill reading Accepting applications or Closed to applications — is how a season is advertised to judges who do not work for you yet. Saving it with Accepting applications on puts the season on the judge portal's open-calls board, where any judge on FilmScorecard can read it and apply; saving it off takes it back down. Invitations by email are unaffected either way. Folded, the card still shows its requests line and Review requests.

The card holds one call per season and is the only place a call exists — there is no other screen for creating, editing, opening or closing one.

In short:

• Accepting applications is the switch. While it is off, the card shows only Applications close and Where applicants send questions under it — the two things a closed call saves. The roles, submission types and categories you had picked are kept for when you turn it back on, and the line under the switch says so.
• Applications close is a date, read in the season's time zone, and the call closes at the end of that day. It has nothing to do with the judging dates on the Season tab.
• Judge roles wanted and Submission types open to applicants (which was called Work types open to applicants) decide who may apply and which of your categories can be opened to them.
• Pay shown to applicants is derived from the per-category rates on the Categories tab and cannot be typed here — Open Categories takes you there. It is the season's span; what a judge is quoted is the span across the categories you opened. An applicant may also choose to volunteer instead, on the last step of their own application — nothing on this card advertises that or switches it off.
• Categories open to applicants decides which of the season's categories a judge is shown, quoted a price for, and can ask to be assigned from. Left at All categories it opens the whole line-up, including categories you attach later.
• Where applicants send questions (which was called Questions from judges) is an optional email address. It is shown on the festival's public page, as Judging coordinator in its Contact card, while the call is open. Left blank, the page shows no address for judge questions.
• There is no Copy link on this card any more. The public page's address, with Copy, is on the Festival tab.
• The four "cannot be listed without one" rules gate listing, never closing: a call can always be turned off and saved.

While the festival's public page is on, an open call is also its Judging tab, and somebody without a FilmScorecard account can create a judge account from that tab's Apply to judge button — see Applying to judge from the page.

The whole card, field by field — including what a judge then sees — is Opening a judge call.

Results

Two cards under the tab's opening sentence: Releasing scorecards — "When submitters can see how they scored, and what every scorecard says." — and Set by blind judging. Both start folded. This tab was called Submitter profile until recently; it is the same settings, without the invitation ones, which are on the Emails tab's Step 1 · First contact card. The address a filmmaker's questions and messages go to is the Contact email on the Season tab's About this season card.

Releasing scorecards holds these rows:

Releasing is a fourth one-way action, and it is not on the Season actions tab. Releasing emails every submitter with an approved scorecard and lets them unlock what their judges wrote; there is no un-release anywhere. Saving can release too: moving a season to As each submission is approved while some of its submissions are already fully approved releases them, so Save changes asks first — "Save and release 12 scorecards now?" — and Cancel saves nothing. Releasing scorecards covers the whole of it — what opens when, what the two approval schedules measure, who gets nothing, and what a submitter then sees. It also locks the season's section weights — see When the weights lock. An owner or org admin can put a promo code in those results emails from the release dialog — see Including a promo code.

One submission's scorecard can also go out ahead of the season, from the Scorecard link card on that submission's own detail panel rather than from here. The padlocked row on this tab records the season's release only; a submission released on its own — by hand, or by As each submission is approved — is recorded on its panel. See Releasing one submission's scorecard.

What a new season starts on. A festival's first season — the one Create festival or Add festival makes — starts at As each submission is approved. A season made from another one, by Duplicate season or Start a new season, takes that season's release choice; the Start a new season page lets you change it on the way. Seasons that already existed keep whatever they had.

The second card, Set by blind judging, states platform behaviour you cannot change — "These protect judges and keep judging fair, so they can't be changed. They're listed here so you know what submitters will and won't see."

They are padlocked facts, not settings. The card was the two Fixed by blind judging rows at the foot of the old Results card, and the rank row was called Ranking against other films. The ranking row used to say a submitter never sees one; a submitter who unlocks their scorecard now reads their place in the season — films against films, screenplays against screenplays — and their place in each category they entered, once a coordinator has released that category's rank from the Awards screen. Until then the page reads "Calculating". Beyond that page the season rank appears nowhere in FilmScorecard unless the submitter chooses to put it on the share card they can build from it (see Releasing scorecards); the category positions are on the Awards screen for staff.

Freezing the press kit when judging closes

A press kit's field items answer for themselves: fill in a tagline or put a poster on a submission and the item counts, and the press kit's share of the score rises with it — see The press kit card. Press kit after judging closes, on the Results tab, set to Keep its score as judged, stops that once the judges have finished, so the score a filmmaker reads — and may have paid for — counts the press kit as it stood when it was judged.

Every season is on Keep its score as judged unless somebody changes it: a festival's first season, a season made from another one, and every season that existed before the setting did. Choose Keep counting edits, and save, only if changes made after judging closes should go on counting.

What locking does:

• It starts when the season's Judging closes time passes — the date on the Season tab's Dates card, whether it passes by itself or you press Close judging. It goes by that date alone, not by whether judging was ever opened on the season's dashboard. A season with no closing date never locks.
• Nothing is blocked. Your team can still change every field of a submission after judging closes.
• The first change to a submission's record after that moment keeps a copy of how its press kit stood just before it, and from then on that copy is what counts for that submission. The change itself is saved, and shown wherever the field is shown; it simply moves no points. Each submission is copied once, and later changes do not replace the copy. A submission nobody changes needs no copy: it already stands as it did when judging closed.
• What counts the frozen press kit: every score — on the submissions list, the submission's Scoring tab and the Review Queue — the filmmaker's scorecard and share card, and the press kit checklist on the filmmaker's submission page: its ticks and crosses, the press kit score on the checklist card and on the overview's Submission details tile, the Filled / Empty pills on How it's judged, and the marks beside the fields. So does the list of what is missing in a submission-page email sent after judging closes. The lines of the Scoring tab's Press kit card show what each field held at that moment.
• What shows the current value: the submission's Information tab, the boxes on the filmmaker's submission page, and the filmmaker's own project. So a filmmaker who fills in a missing field after judging closes sees it saved in its box while its checklist row keeps its cross and the box still reads Missing — and nothing on their page says why.

Changing your mind:

• Choose Keep counting edits and save, and every copy in the season is dropped: current values count again at once, scores included.
• Choose Keep its score as judged again and save, and the season locks again from the next change — at what the record holds then, not at what it held when judging closed.
• Move Judging closes into the future, or clear it, and the copies are dropped too, as they should be when judging is re-opened. When the new closing time passes, the lock starts over from the first change after it.

Who can change it: anybody who can open Settings — see Who can open it. Neither judging nor a release locks it.

Duplicate season and Start a new season copy it from the season they are made from; the Start a new season page has no control for it.

A season whose judging closed before the setting was added is on Keep its score as judged too. A change made to one of its submissions between that close and the setting's arrival has already counted; the lock keeps what the record held at the first change since.

Emails

The two emails that send themselves, and what decides when they go. Every other email FilmScorecard sends for your festival goes because somebody pressed a button, so it needs no setting here. This tab holds the two that can go on their own: the link to each filmmaker's submission page, as each submission arrives, and the Scorecard ready email. The tab opens with "Emails FilmScorecard sends to submitters for the Spring 2026 season, on your festival's behalf. Each one has its own settings." What every email is, and what it says, is in Emails your festival sends.

One card per email. Each card's head carries the email's name, a status pill, a Preview email button that opens the email itself — see Preview — a sentence saying what the email is for, and two lines that describe it rather than set anything: Who gets it and What's in it. The settings are the rows under them. The two cards are numbered in the order the emails go out: Step 1 · First contact, the submission-page link, then Step 2 · Scorecards ready, the results email. They were called Before judging starts and Scorecard ready.

Before judging starts

The card titled Step 1 · First contact: the email with the link to each filmmaker's submission page, where they fill in what judges read. Its pill reads Not decided, On arrival or Manual, from the saved setting. Its sentence: "Asks each submitter to finish their submission page."

• Who gets it: "Every submitter, one email for each submission they entered."
• What's in it: "A link to their submission page, where they add the tagline, synopsis, statement and poster judges read. Anything left blank earns no points."

Saving As each one arrives covers only what arrives afterwards. When the season already holds submissions in a category that have not had the email, an amber line under the choice counts them — "28 submissions already here in a category haven't had it. Only new arrivals get it on their own, so use Send now below for these." Nothing is sent for them until you press Send to 25 now.

Sent so far reads "No submissions yet." while no submission's page is open — which includes once the Notification date has arrived or the season is Completed or Archived, but not merely once judging has closed — and otherwise "112 of 140 submissions have been sent it", over a progress bar, then Sent. "Emailed to the submitter.", Not sent yet. — the ones in a category — and, only when there are any, Waiting for a category., with a See them in Submissions link to the Submissions list showing only the submissions in no category. The Not sent yet line reads "Nothing goes out on its own until you choose how it sends.", "Nothing goes out until you send it.", "New arrivals go out on their own. Any others wait for Send now.", "New arrivals are held until you open judging. Any others wait for Send now.", "Every submission in a category has it." or "Everyone has it.". While anybody in a category is waiting, Send to 25 now sits under them — whatever the setting — beside "Sends to the 25 submissions in a category that haven't had it.", and asks first: "Send to 25 submitters now?", "Each gets an email with a link to their submission page. Submitters already sent their link are skipped.", Send to 25 now. Once you confirm, the button reads Queued and greys out, the waiting line reads "Sending now. Queued the time.", and "This takes a few minutes. You can leave this page." until the counts move.

This setting sends email to people outside your organization: under As each one arrives, within minutes of each submission arriving, with no confirmation. Every new season starts Not decided, except one made with Start the next season, which takes its source season's choice. A season that was set to Automatically now reads As each one arrives; one that was set to Only when I click Send now now reads Not decided. When the email goes, who gets it, what it says and what Send to 25 now does are all in Inviting submitters.

Scorecard ready

The card titled Step 2 · Scorecards ready: the email that tells each filmmaker their scorecard is ready, with the link to it. That link opens their submission page's overview, with the scorecard put first — "Your scorecard is in" — and its View scorecard goes on to the scorecard, carrying the email's promo code when it has one. What sends it is the season's release choice. Its pill reads Not sent yet, Sending once some submissions have been released on their own, or Sent once the season is marked released. Its sentence: "Tells each submitter their scorecard is ready to view."

• Who gets it: "Every submitter whose scorecard has been approved."
• What's in it: "A link to their scorecard. Reading what the judges wrote is a paid unlock."

A promo code on the emails that send themselves. A release you start by hand — Release scorecards, Release the rest, or one submission's own release — lets an owner or org admin pick a code in its dialog. A release that happens on its own has no dialog, so this is where its code is chosen: when the season's scorecards go out on any of the four schedules, each Scorecard ready email carries this code, with the discount it gives worked out for that filmmaker. The row's sentence says so — "A discount on unlocking the judges' written comments, added to each Scorecard ready email that sends on its own. A code that has expired or stopped covering this season sends the plain email instead." — and the same goes for the email to any filmmaker on your promo suppression list. The line under it reads "No discount is included." or "Each email carries this code, with its discount worked out for that submitter."

• On a season that releases only by hand, the field is greyed out, with "Promo codes are only added to emails that send on their own. When you release by hand, you pick a code then."
• A saved code that no longer applies stays in the select, reading "A code that no longer applies", so the field never reads No promo code over a stored code. Choose No promo code or another code, and save.
• A code that stopped being offered between loading the page and saving is refused with "That promo code can't be included. Refresh the page and try again."
• A new season starts at No promo code. Duplicate season and Start a new season do not carry the code.

See Including a promo code and Promo codes.

What this screen does not do yet

Some of what is set on these tabs is stored and validated here, and acted on elsewhere. Being plain about it:

• Add-on prices are configuration only. They are stored and displayed; nothing charges anyone. A season records no entry fee at all — entry fees are collected on FilmFreeway. See A season's categories and awards.
• Judge pay rates are configuration only too. They are stored, carried into next season, and recorded against each scorecard as it is filed — and nothing pays anybody. No judge is shown them either. See Judge pay. What the records add up to, and the payments you make outside FilmScorecard, are tracked in the season's Payouts section — see Paying your judges.
• The season's Paid or Volunteer setting does not decide what every judge is paid. It is a ceiling: a paid season can hold a judge taken on as a volunteer, and each place carries its own terms. See Judge pay.
• Narrowing a call's categories does not warn you about applications you already hold. The restriction now decides what a judge sees and can apply for, but closing a category says nothing about the requests already on your Requests tab — and it does not change them. See Opening a judge call.
• What a scorecard costs is not set here, or anywhere else on your screens. A released season's submitters pay a platform-set price to unlock what their judges wrote, the same figure at every festival, and no field on any screen changes it. Your side of it is the organization's Stripe payout account (see Connecting payouts) and the season's Revenue card — the whole of it is Selling scorecard access.
• The Final submission deadline does not enforce anything. Imports still land in the season after the date passes.
• Neither the Notification date nor Award winners announced sends an email. The Notification date opens scorecards on one of the five release choices and puts Official Selection on a selected film's public page; Award winners announced lets a film's public page show its awards. Both reach the filmmakers who have saved the submission to their account as updates in their bell — no email and no post goes out for either. A film whose filmmaker has not saved it to an account shows nothing anywhere, whatever the dates say. See The public film page.
• The festival's own dates schedule nothing. Event dates — Starts and Ends — are printed on the public page and nowhere acted on.
• The note in the sidebar's bottom corner — "Judging window not set. Add dates in Settings." — is fixed text. It does not check your judging dates and does not change once you set them. The dates are on the Season tab.
• Section weights are one split for the whole season. There is no way to give one category a different balance from another.
• Judges per category is one number for the whole season, too. There is no way to ask for more judges in one category than in another.
• Written feedback is not a season setting. Which feedback boxes judges fill in follows each creative scorecard's own switches, and there is no way to ask for a box but make it optional.
• No season-wide list of who was invited. The Sent so far count on the Emails tab is the only figure across the season; each submission's own Audit tab lists the emails sent about it — see The Audit tab and Inviting submitters.
• A festival's name, address, website, FilmFreeway page, logo and Public page switch cannot differ by season. The season's description, location and contact email, on the Season tab, are per season.
• Judges get no scoring reminders. There is no reminder setting, and nothing emails a judge on its own about films still to score.
• Most of the public page is not edited here. Its About text, founded year, backdrop, social profile, the season's edition, director, programming partner, office phone, extra dates and venues, and its Show on page switches are edited only on the page itself — see Editing the page.

Messages

Every sentence Settings can answer a change with, and what it means. Field messages appear under the field; the rest appear in amber at the top of the card they belong to, on the Save bar, or inside the dialog you were using.

Related guides

• The public festival page — what the Public page switch puts up, how it is edited in place, and which of this screen's fields it shows.
• Connecting FilmFreeway — the FilmFreeway tab: bringing a festival's FilmFreeway submissions in by themselves, matching categories, what each sync changes and never changes, Needs attention, the pauses, removing the key and undoing the sync.
• Opening a judge call — the Judging tab's second card: putting your season on the judge portal's open-calls board, the four rules that gate a listing, closing without losing your work, and what an applicant then sees.
• Opening judging — the dashboard button that, with the opening date, lets judges see films, and the banner a season carries until it is pressed.
• How the judging queue works — what Judges per category does to each judge's queue, and the order films are offered in.
• Building a scorecard — the two written-feedback switches that decide what judges write, now that this tab has no Written comment rule.
• Inviting submitters — the Emails tab's Step 1 · First contact card: emailing each filmmaker their submission page as their submission arrives, what the email says, the count and Send to N now.
• Releasing scorecards — the Results tab's one-way actions: the five schedules, Release scorecards and Release the rest, what each submitter is emailed, and who gets nothing.
• Releasing one submission's scorecard — the same thing for one submission, from its detail panel, ahead of the season.
• Emails your festival sends — every email FilmScorecard sends for the festival, who gets it, what sends it, and what the Emails tab's Preview email shows.
• The public film page — what the Season tab's Notification date and Award winners announced change on a filmmaker's public page, and what your festival's logo is used for there.
• Selling scorecard access — what a submitter pays to unlock a scorecard, what the festival earns, and why the price is not a field on this screen.
• A season's categories and awards — the two tabs with a Save button of their own: attaching library records to a season, and add-on prices.
• Judge pay — the Categories tab's other half: the two rate columns, the season-wide Paid or Volunteer ceiling and its lock, and what a filed scorecard records.
• What an invitation pays — what one judge is paid under that ceiling, including inviting somebody as a volunteer.
• Paying your judges — where the recorded amounts are added up and the payments you make are logged.
• Connecting payouts — the organization-wide Stripe payout account, which is not on this screen and is not set per festival.
• Opening a submission — where the section weights show up in practice: one submission's score, category by category, and the Press kit card that Keep its score as judged holds still.