# Filling out a scorecard yourself

> From FilmScorecard Help: https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/filling-out-a-scorecard

You do not have to wait for a judge. From the [Submissions](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/submissions.md)
list, anyone on the season's staff who can approve scorecards can **fill one in
themselves** — a creative scorecard, a technical checklist or a press-kit
card — and it counts toward the film's score the moment they file it.

**Your scorecard counts exactly as a judge's does.** That sentence is on the
dialog itself, and it is the whole of the arrangement: your creative card joins
the same average, takes one of the same places on the panel, your technical
marks fill the same slot, your award recommendations enter the same pools.
Nothing about the arithmetic knows that a coordinator wrote it. What tells your
colleagues apart from your judges is the attribution: every screen that names a
filer writes yours as **"*Your name* (staff)"**.

Use it for the work judges cannot or should not do — the press-kit card no
judge is ever offered, a technical review nobody picked up, a film that needs
one more opinion before a decision — not as a way of quietly out-voting a
panel.

**A press kit is now half your job and half the submission's.** Most of a press
kit card's items watch a field on the submission record and satisfy themselves
the moment that field has something in it; only the rest are yours to mark. See
[A press kit card](#a-press-kit-card).

## Who can do this

**It needs the "Approve scorecards and resolve flags" capability** — the same
one the [Review Queue](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/review-queue.md#who-can-work-here) runs on. Filing and
approving are one action here, so somebody who cannot approve must not be able
to mint an approved scorecard from the list.

- Festival admins and coordinators have it by default; organization owners and
  org admins always have it.
- **Without it, the menu item is not there at all** — not greyed, absent — and
  the scoring page answers "page not found" if you reach it by address.
- **A Viewer is refused even with the box ticked.** The capability boxes on
  [festival access](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/festival-access.md) can be ticked for anyone, but a
  viewer cannot write to a season whatever they say. Today that refusal arrives
  late: the menu item appears, the form opens, you can fill the whole thing in,
  and only the final confirm answers "You do not have permission to file a
  scorecard on this season. Nothing was recorded." Leave a viewer's boxes
  alone.
- **Judges cannot reach any of this.** Being on a season's judging roster
  grants nothing on a festival's staff screens — see
  [Judging coordinators are staff, not judges](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/judges.md#judging-coordinators-are-staff-not-judges).

**A submission On hold can still be filled in.** Holding a film keeps it away
from judges, not from your own team — see
[Holding a submission out of judging](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/submissions.md#holding-a-submission-out-of-judging).

## Opening the chooser

The three-dot menu at the end of any row on the Submissions list carries **Fill
out a scorecard**, under *Edit categories* and above the amber Withdraw block.
Like Edit categories, it only ever opens a dialog — nothing is written from the
menu.

**The item is on every row**, whatever has already been filled in. Which
scorecards are still open is a question the dialog answers, not the list.

The dialog lives in the address (`?score=…` on the submissions URL), so it
survives a reload and a link to it opens the same dialog for a colleague.
Opening it closes any submission panel you had open — FilmScorecard shows one
floating surface at a time.

## Reading the chooser

Headed **Fill out a scorecard for *Title*** under a small **Scorecards** pill,
with one sentence under it: "Your scorecard counts toward this film's score
exactly as a judge's does."

Under that, **one block per category the submission competes in**, A to Z, and
inside each block **one row per scorecard attached to that category** — in the
order Creative, Technical, Press kit. Each row names the slot and the
scorecard's own name ("Creative — Drama Feature v2").

Each row is in one of these states:

| The row reads | What it means |
| --- | --- |
| **The slot in indigo, clickable, with Open at the right** | Open. Clicking it opens the scoring form, blank. |
| **The slot in indigo, clickable, with Edit at the right** | A Creative row you have already filed on. Clicking it opens your own scorecard, filled in, to change. |
| **Filed by *name*** | Somebody has already filed this technical or press-kit card. Grey, and not clickable. |
| ***name* is working on this now** | A judge is holding this checklist right now. Grey, and not clickable. |

A name with **(staff)** after it is a colleague's filing; a plain name is a
judge's.

**A Creative row also carries a count**, in parentheses beside the word
Creative — **(1/3)** — which is how many creative scorecards have been filed
on that category, judges' and colleagues' together, against the season's
**Judges per category**. Two categories on one film can stand at different
counts, and this is where you see which one is behind. A panel that has filed
more than it was asked for reads honestly, "(4/3)". Until the season's Judges
per category is set, no count is shown.

**Under an open Creative row, two lines say who is already there.** The first
names the colleagues who have filed a creative card on that category — "Filed
by Fay Festival and Sam Staff · 2 staff cards" — and the second names the
judges who hold or have filed one. Neither closes the row: a creative row is
never taken, only accompanied.

**When judges' creative scorecards on that category are done and waiting for
your review, a third line says so, in amber** — "2 are done and waiting for
your review". It is a nudge to look at theirs first, not a lock: the row still
opens, and the form says it again at its top — see
[The scoring page](#the-scoring-page). A scorecard sent back to its judge is
not counted, because it is theirs again.

**There are no scores in this dialog, deliberately.** It tells you which slots
are taken and by whom, and nothing about what anyone gave the film. A
coordinator whose scorecard counts as a judge's fills it in the way a judge
does — with the film in front of them, not with the panel's marks. The full
picture is one click away in the [Review Queue](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/review-queue.md).

### What "open" means for each slot, exactly

The three slots do not answer the same question, and the difference matters:

- **A Creative row is open to every coordinator who has not filed on it, and
  open again to each one who has.** Each of you may hold **one** creative card
  per category on a film, and a colleague's card does not block yours: the row
  reads **Open** until you have filed, and **Edit** afterwards. Judges'
  creative cards do not block it either — several creative opinions per film
  are the point — but they are shown: the judges already on that category are
  named under the row, and the **(1/3)** count includes them and every
  colleague's card. So an open Creative row means "you have no card here", not
  "nobody has scored this film". **It stays open even when the category's
  panel is full** — you can always add your own opinion. The submission's
  [Scoring tab](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/opening-a-submission.md#the-scoring-tab) has what the panel
  actually gave it.
- **Technical and press-kit rows are one filing per scorecard, for
  everybody.** Once anyone has filed one — judge or staff — the row reads Filed
  by, and it stays that way. A judge who is *holding* one right now blocks it
  too, and reads as working on it: staff can never file over a review a judge
  is in the middle of.
- **A technical or press-kit scorecard shared by two categories appears under
  both**, because it is one review serving both. Filling it in once fills it
  for both, and both rows then read Filed by.

**Press-kit cards are never offered to judges at all.** Filling one in here is
the only way one ever gets done.

### A press kit that fills itself is not offered here

**A press kit row is missing from the dialog entirely when its scorecard has
nothing for a coordinator to mark** — that is, when every item on it watches a
submission field. That is not a slot somebody already took and not an error:
there is nothing to fill in, so no card is ever created for it. The press kit
never holds the film short of complete, and it keeps moving as the submission
record is filled. **Its points join the film's score in a category once
another approved scorecard counts toward that category** — a judge's or a
colleague's creative scorecard, or the technical review; on their own, its
satisfied items score nothing.

Where you read that press kit is the submission's
[Scoring tab](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/opening-a-submission.md#the-press-kit-card), which lists every
item and its state whether or not a card exists.

So a category whose only scorecards are a self-filling press kit shows just its
creative and technical rows, and a submission whose every slot is either taken
or self-filling reads "Every scorecard on this submission has been filled in."

### When there is nothing to fill in

The dialog still opens and says why:

| What you see | Why |
| --- | --- |
| "This submission is not attached to a category yet. Add one with Edit categories first." | Nothing is attached, so there is nothing to score it against. See [Editing a submission's categories](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/submissions.md#editing-a-submissions-categories). |
| "No scorecards are attached to this category yet." | The category is on the submission but carries no scorecards. Attach some in [Categories and scorecards](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/categories-and-scorecards.md#attaching-scorecards). |
| "Every scorecard on this submission has been filled in. Open the review queue to read or change them." | Every row above is taken. Nothing here is clickable; corrections happen in the queue. With a Creative row on the film this never appears, because that row is always yours to open or edit. |

## The scoring page

An open row opens the scoring form **in a panel over the Submissions list**,
straight away and without reloading the list underneath, so your place in it
stands. The address gains `?fill=…`, so a reload or a link opens the same form,
middle-clicking the row opens it in a new tab, and the browser's Back button
closes it. An older address, `…/submissions/score/<submission>?slot=…`, still
opens the same form on a page of its own.

The header names the category and the slot, then the film's title, then the
scorecard's own name. Under the header, a light-purple banner reads **"Staff
review · unpaid, not counted in judge pay"**: a card you file earns nobody any
judge pay. The scorecard's top bar names the card once — **Creative
scorecard**, **Technical review** or **Press kit** — and below it come the
questions exactly as that scorecard asks them.

**On a creative card, an amber notice can come first.** When judges' creative
scorecards on this category are filed and waiting for your review, the top of
the form reads "You're about to start a scorecard, but 2 are done and waiting
for your review." with a link, **Review them in the Review Queue** (**Review it
in the Review Queue** for one), that opens the
[Review Queue](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/review-queue.md) on creative scorecards, searched by the
film's title. **Nothing is blocked**: the form under the notice works exactly
as it would without it, and it shows however you arrived — the row menu, a
`+` in a Creative cell on the Submissions list, or a link to this page. Following the link with
answers on the form asks before leaving, as ✕ does. The count is judges' cards
only — a colleague's card is approved as it is filed, and one sent back to its
judge is not waiting on you.

**The film pane beside the form is the judges' own** — see
[The film pane](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/scoring-a-film.md#the-film-pane). **A screenplay the festival stored as a
PDF shows "This screenplay is a PDF" and an Open PDF ↗ button**, which opens
the script in a new tab. Each press makes a fresh link that works for about
ten minutes, so if a tab you left open stops loading, press **Open PDF** again.

**An Edit row opens the same page with your own answers already in it** —
every question, the feedback boxes and any award recommendations you ticked —
ready to change. Nothing is different about the form; only the confirmation at
the end, which says it is replacing your card rather than filing a new one.

### A creative scorecard

Identical to what a judge fills in, on purpose — a staff filing that carried
less would be the one numbered judge with no notes on the filmmaker's page.

- **Every question the scorecard asks**, in the scorecard's own order and in
  whatever kinds it was built from: a row of ten cells for a 1-to-10 question
  (clicking a set cell clears it), Yes / No, a pick-one row, a tick-several
  list, or a text box. When the form has any 1-to-10 question — the
  filmmaker's included — one line above the questions reads "1 is the lowest
  score, 10 the highest.", exactly as a judge's card does. See
  [Building a scorecard](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/building-a-scorecard.md) for how those get written.
- **The filmmaker's own questions**, when they wrote any — see
  [Questions from the filmmaker](#questions-from-the-filmmaker) below.
- **The feedback boxes the scorecard has switched on — Positive feedback,
  Opportunities for improvement, or both — and every one of them is
  required.** A box the scorecard has switched off is not on the form and is
  not asked for; on a scorecard with both off, there is no feedback section at
  all. See [Written feedback](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/building-a-scorecard.md#written-feedback). The
  filmmaker reads the boxes word for word, once their scorecard is released —
  with the season, or on its own. See
  [Releasing scorecards](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/releasing-scorecards.md).
- **Each feedback box carries a Rewrite button** at the right of its label.
  It sends that one box's text to OpenAI and puts a tidied version back in
  its place, under an **Undo**; the box is locked only while its own rewrite
  is out, and the rewrite itself files nothing. Highlight words inside a box
  and a small bar offers **Rewrite**, **Extend**, **Shorten** and **Custom**
  for those words alone. What is sent and what is not, and everything Undo
  does, is in [Rewriting written feedback](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/rewriting-feedback.md). The
  button and the bar are the one thing on the form a judge's screen does not
  have.
- **Award recommendations**, optional, and only when the film is eligible for
  any — the same list a judge sees: every award this film is eligible for, A to
  Z, each with its code and a line of its description, under a search box.
  Tick one and a note box opens under it — "Why this film, in a sentence.
  Optional.", up to 280 characters, "Seen by the coordinator only, never by the
  filmmaker." **Three at most on one card**: the count beside the heading reads
  "2 of 3 picked", and once three are ticked the rest read **Remove one to pick
  another**. An award the filmmaker already entered reads **In the pool** and
  cannot be ticked. A recommendation on an approved card puts the film into
  that award's pool — see [Award pools](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/award-pools.md). Only the season's
  library awards are listed: a category award's pool is the category itself
  and needs no recommending. The whole list is described on
  [The creative scorecard](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/creative-scorecard.md#award-recommendations).

#### Questions from the filmmaker

Between the scorecard's own questions and the feedback boxes, a creative
form can carry a second block:

> **Questions from the filmmaker**
>
> Written by the person who entered this film. Your answers go to them on their
> scorecard and never count toward the score.

**The submitter wrote these on their own private submission page**, before
anybody filed a creative card on the film. A festival lets each one ask up to
two questions, and every creative card on that film — a judge's or yours —
answers them. See
[Letting submitters fix their own details](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/submission-links.md).

- **They are marked `Q1` and `Q2`**, and answered with the same controls as
  everything else: ten cells, Yes / No, a pick-one list, or a box to write in.
- **Answering them is required**, exactly as the festival's own questions are.
  The footer says which one is short — see
  [The footer tells you what is still missing](#the-footer-tells-you-what-is-still-missing).
- **None of it is scored.** A 1-to-10 answer here is a number for the
  filmmaker; it joins no average and changes nothing about the film's result.
- **A free-text answer carries the Rewrite button and the selection bar**, the
  same as the feedback boxes — the filmmaker reads it word for word, so it
  is moderated like anything else you write for them. The festival's own
  free-text questions do not have it. See
  [Rewriting written feedback](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/rewriting-feedback.md).
- **Your answers reach the filmmaker as one more numbered judge**, with nothing
  saying a coordinator wrote them — the same rule as the rest of the card.

**Most films have no block at all** and nothing is drawn where it would be. It
is never on a technical or press-kit form.

### A technical checklist

**Pass** or **Fail** on every item, with each item's points — "4 pts" — in a
column just left of the two buttons. Failing one opens a *Note for the
coordinator* box under it — write what went wrong, or leave it empty; the note
is yours to judge, and the card files either way. Passing the item again clears
the note.

### A press kit card

A press kit card is headed **Press kit** and is read in two groups, because
only one of them is yours.

Under the heading sits one line describing the arrangement — "Field items are
satisfied by the submission itself and keep moving as the record is filled
until judging closes, if the season freezes its press kit. Mark the manual
items below." **If the scorecard has a description of its own,
that description is printed here instead**, so a festival can say something
more specific to its own reviewers. See
[The description](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/building-a-scorecard.md#the-description).

**From the submission** — everything on this card that watches a field on the
submission record. These are read-only:

- The item's name, its points, and the line **"Filled by the submitter.
  Nothing to mark here."**
- On the right, a badge reading **On file** or **Empty**, and under it a short
  description of what is there.
- **That description is a shape, never the thing itself** — "12 words",
  "vimeo.com", "1 file", "On file", "$18,000", "2018". You will not read the
  synopsis here, or the tagline, or the screener address, and that is
  deliberate: the item's question is only whether something was submitted. To
  read what was actually written, open the submission's
  [Display or Information tab](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/opening-a-submission.md).
- An item with nothing behind it reads **Empty**, with "Empty, nothing
  submitted yet" beside it.

**For you to mark** — the rest, and the only part this page writes:

- **Pass** or **Fail** on every one, as on a technical checklist, with the
  item's points on a line under its name. Failing one opens a note box.
- Any guidance the scorecard's author wrote for the item shows under its name.

**There is no override on a field item, anywhere.** If you know the poster
arrived by email and the item still reads Empty, the fix is to put the poster
on the record: open the submission and upload it on the
[Information tab](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/opening-a-submission.md#the-information-tab), or add the
statement, or paste the trailer link. The item satisfies itself the moment you
do, and its points are earned everywhere at once, on this card and on every
screen that reads the press kit. Nothing has to be filed for that to happen.
**After judging has closed, a season that freezes its press kit keeps each item
as it stood instead** — see
[Freezing the press kit when judging closes](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/festival-settings.md#freezing-the-press-kit-when-judging-closes).

### The footer tells you what is still missing

The bar at the foot of the page follows you down the page and always says where
you stand, in one line:

- "3 questions still need an answer." → "One question still needs an answer."
- "Both feedback fields still need writing." → "The opportunities field still
  needs writing." or "The positive feedback field still needs writing." — and
  only ever about a box the scorecard has switched on.
- "Both of the filmmaker's questions still need answers." → "The filmmaker's
  question still needs an answer."
- "2 items still need a pass or a fail." → "One item still needs a pass or a
  fail."
- Then, when nothing is missing: **"Review your answers"**, and **File and
  approve** — or **Save changes**, on a card you are editing — lights up.

**It names one thing at a time, in that order**, so the filmmaker's questions
are the last sentence you see rather than the first: a form that is short on
both a festival question and a filmmaker question says so about the festival's
first. **Those two sentences never mean the scorecard's own questions** — they
point at the block headed *Questions from the filmmaker*, which is somewhere
else on the form.

**The button is also held while a rewrite of either feedback box is still
out**, with the line above it unchanged — it comes back the moment the reply
lands. A rewrite of a filmmaker's free-text answer holds it the same way. See
[Rewriting written feedback](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/rewriting-feedback.md).

**On a press kit card that count is only the items you mark.** The read-only
half never holds the card back, whatever state the submission is in — a press
kit whose every field is empty can still be filed the moment you have marked
your own items.

That sentence is the same rule the server applies, so a scorecard the footer
calls finished is one the confirm will accept. **The rule is read again when
you confirm**: if somebody switches a feedback box on while your form is open,
the confirm refuses with "This scorecard is not finished yet. Nothing was
recorded." — reload, and the box is on the form.

### Nothing is saved until you file

**There is no autosave and no draft.** Nothing exists in FilmScorecard until you
confirm — no half-written card sitting anywhere, nothing for a colleague to
stumble on, nothing to clean up if you change your mind. On a card you are
editing, the same holds: your filed card stands untouched until you confirm.

The cost is that **closing the tab loses your answers**. Once you have typed
anything, the browser puts its own "leave site?" warning in the way of a close
or a reload — the standard browser dialog, not a FilmScorecard one. ✕, Escape
or a click on the list beside the form asks first too: "You have unsaved
changes on this page. Leave without saving them?"
**The browser's Back button does not ask**: it closes the form and your
answers go with it. Finish the card in one sitting.

## The confirm screen

**File and approve** does not file anything yet. It opens a confirmation headed
**File this scorecard?**, which names exactly what is about to be written —
"*Solstice* — Drama Film, creative" — and says what filing does:

> **This files and approves the scorecard at once.**
>
> It skips the review queue. Your answers, and any award recommendations, go
> with it.
>
> It counts toward this film's score immediately.
>
> You return to the submissions list. You can change it later from the review
> queue.

A technical or press-kit card names the scorecard instead of a category —
"*Solstice* — press kit, Press Kit v1" — because that review belongs to the
scorecard and to no single category.

**On a card you are editing the confirmation reads differently**, because you
are replacing your own filed card rather than adding one:

> **Save your changes to this scorecard?**
>
> **This replaces your filed scorecard, and it stays approved.**

with the same two lines about the review queue and the score underneath, and
**Save changes** in place of **File and approve**.

If every scale question carries the same score, an amber note — "Every question
has the same score." — asks you to look again. It asks; it never refuses.

- **File and approve** (or **Save changes**) commits it.
- **Go back** returns to the form with every answer still in place.
- If anything is refused, you stay on this screen, the reason appears in red,
  and your answers are untouched. See [If filing is refused](#if-filing-is-refused).

On success the form closes over the Submissions list you were on, and the
row's figures update in place a moment later.

## What filing does

**The feedback boxes are filed exactly as you typed them, and proofread just
after.** Filing does not wait for it. The text of each box then goes to OpenAI
for spelling, grammar and punctuation only, exactly as a judge's does when they
file, and the corrected wording replaces yours a moment later. Your words stay
as you typed them if the correction would change more than that, if it does
not come back within ten seconds, if you or a colleague save a change to the
card's feedback first, or if the scorecard has been released to its filmmaker
by then.

One press, and all of this at once:

1. **The scorecard is created, filed and approved together.** There is no
   waiting in the review queue and no second approval step — the card is born
   approved, in your name.
2. **The score counts immediately.** The Submissions list's Score column and
   Scores-in ticks, the submission's [Scoring tab](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/opening-a-submission.md#the-scoring-tab),
   and every award screen all count approved scorecards, and yours is one from
   the moment you confirm. **If nothing else on the film has been approved yet,
   yours is what starts its score** — a technical or press-kit card as much as
   a creative one.
3. **Your award recommendations enter their pools**, marked as a judge
   recommendation exactly as a judge's are. A film already in a pool by any
   route stays as it was.
4. **It joins the [Review Queue](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/review-queue.md)**, on the Approved tab,
   with your name and the staff marker. That is where you go to read or correct
   it.
5. **It is in line for the filmmaker.** A creative filing — its answers, its
   feedback boxes and your answers to the filmmaker's own questions — is part
   of what its submitter reads once their scorecard is released, credited as
   one more numbered judge, with nothing naming you. Two colleagues' cards on
   one category are two numbered judges. Nothing is sent at the moment you
   file; releasing is its own deliberate step — for the season on
   [Settings → Results](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/releasing-scorecards.md), or for this one
   submission from
   [its detail panel](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/releasing-one-scorecard.md).
6. **It freezes the filmmaker's questions.** The *first* creative card filed on
   a submission — yours or a judge's — is what stops its submitter adding,
   editing or removing a question, permanently. That holds even if the card is
   later withdrawn.
7. **A technical review opens the film to creative judges.** On a season where
   [creative judging waits for technical approval](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/festival-settings.md#creative-judging-waits-for-technical-approval),
   no judge is offered the film's creative scorecard until its technical review
   is approved — and yours is approved as you file it, so judges can be
   offered the creative scorecard the next time they look.

**Saving changes to a card you filed does less, deliberately.** Your answers,
the feedback boxes, your answers to the filmmaker's questions and your
recommendations are replaced by what you confirmed; the card keeps its original
filing date and stays approved; the score is re-read from the new answers; and
the review queue's history for the card records an edit. A recommendation you
unticked leaves the card but does not take the film out of the award's pool —
the same rule as withdrawing one in the queue; see
[Award pools](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/award-pools.md#the-five-numbers-along-the-top). A
recommendation you added enters its pool as any new one does.

**A feedback box that is switched off when you save is saved empty.** Anything
you had written in it before the box was switched off is gone from your card
once you save, and switching the box back on later brings back an empty box,
not your words. Correcting the card in the Review Queue instead leaves a
switched-off box exactly as it was — see
[Written feedback](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/building-a-scorecard.md#written-feedback).

**Filing a press kit card is what makes the whole press kit count.** Until it
is filed, the section is outstanding and contributes nothing to the film's
score, however many of its fields the record already satisfies — the sentence
on the Scoring tab names it as outstanding, and the score does not include it.
Filing releases both halves at once: your marks, frozen as you left them, and
the field half, which **keeps moving from then on** as the record is filled in.
On a film nobody else has scored yet, it is also what gives the category a
score at all.

**There is no email and no notification.** No judge and no filmmaker is told
anything because you filed.

## What it does not do

- **It does not leave the judges' places alone.** Your creative card counts
  toward the season's **Judges per category** exactly as a judge's does: once
  the creative scorecards filed and in progress on a category reach that
  number — yours included — the category is not offered to any more judges,
  and a film whose every category is full leaves every judge's queue. So
  filling a gap yourself means one judge fewer is sent to it. See
  [How the judging queue works](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/how-the-judging-queue-works.md#7-every-place-on-it-is-taken).
- **It does not take a film away from a judge already scoring it.** A judge
  holding a place on that category when you file keeps it, and the category
  ends one over. **A judge whose 48-hour hold had already lapsed is a different
  case**: if your card fills the last place, theirs can no longer be filed, and
  their screen tells them it went back to the queue.
- **It does take the shared checklist slot.** A technical or press-kit filing
  is one per scorecard for everybody, so once you file one, no judge will be
  offered that checklist on that film again.
- **It does not freeze a press kit's field items.** Filing freezes only what
  you marked. Every field item on the card carries on answering for itself, so
  a press kit score can rise after it was filed, simply because somebody
  finished the record. Once judging has closed that stops, unless the season's
  [press kit freeze](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/festival-settings.md#freezing-the-press-kit-when-judging-closes)
  is off.
- **It ignores the judging window.** Neither the season's opening date nor its
  closing date gates any of this: you can file before judging opens and long
  after it has closed. **Filing a creative card early does still freeze the
  filmmaker's questions**, so a submitter who had not written theirs yet has
  lost the chance.
- **It does not wait for the technical review.** Creative judging that waits
  for technical approval holds judges, not your team: you can file a creative
  scorecard whether or not the film's technical review has been approved.
- **It can take a film past its panel size, and the screens say so.** A fourth
  filing on a panel of three reads **"4 of 3"**, with four ticks all filled —
  the real number, not a number clamped to look tidy. **Judges per category**
  decides how many judges are offered each category, not how many scorecards it
  may carry.
- **No judge ever sees it.** A staff filing appears in no judge's payload and
  on no judge's dashboard, and no judge is told which of your colleagues has
  filed. What it does change, invisibly, is which films judges are offered and
  in what order: a film you have started counts as under way, and comes up
  sooner for the judges who can still take it. Blind judging is unaffected.
- **One staff creative card per category, per person.** Filing again on a
  category you have already filed on edits that card rather than adding a
  second; a second opinion on the same category has to come from a colleague,
  under their own name.

## If filing is refused

Every refusal leaves your answers on screen and writes nothing at all.

| The message | What happened |
| --- | --- |
| "Someone filled this scorecard in while you were working. Nothing was recorded — your answers are still on screen." | A judge or a colleague filed the same technical or press-kit checklist between your opening the form and your confirming. Nothing you can do here — read theirs in the queue. A creative card is never refused this way: a colleague's filing sits beside yours. |
| "This scorecard is not finished yet. Nothing was recorded." | Something is unanswered. Go back; the footer names it. **That includes a filmmaker's question** — one can be added or changed while your form is open, right up until the first creative card on the film is filed. Reload and it is on the form. **It also includes a feedback box switched on while your form was open.** |
| "This scorecard no longer matches the categories this submission competes in. Nothing was recorded." | The submission's categories changed under you, so this scorecard no longer applies to it. **It is also what you get when the filmmaker removed one of their own questions while your form was open** — the sentence names categories, which is misleading, but reloading the form is the fix in both cases. |
| "This submission is no longer in the season, so it cannot be scored. Nothing was recorded." | The submission was withdrawn or disqualified while you were working. |
| "You do not have permission to file a scorecard on this season. Nothing was recorded." | Your role cannot write to this season — most often a Viewer with the approve box ticked. See [Who can do this](#who-can-do-this). |
| "This scorecard could not be filed. Nothing was recorded. Try again in a moment." | Something went wrong in transit. **If it comes back every time you save an Edit**, the category's creative scorecard was changed after you filed — see [Correcting a scorecard you filed](#correcting-a-scorecard-you-filed). |
| "Something on this scorecard is not valid. Nothing was recorded." | The page sent something the server would not accept. Reload and fill it in again. |

**A stale link 404s rather than explaining.** The scoring page answers "page not
found" for a submission that has been withdrawn, for a slot the submission's
categories no longer reach, and for anything hand-edited into the address. It
is not a wrong answer — it is the same answer a mistyped address gets.

One press-kit case worth naming: **if somebody removes the last manual item
from the press kit scorecard while your form is open**, the card you are
filling in stops being one the season needs. Reload and the row is gone from
the chooser; the press kit is already complete without you.

## Correcting a scorecard you filed

**Two doors, same card.** A creative card you filed opens again from the
chooser — its row reads **Edit** — with your answers in place, and confirming
saves over it. Every card you filed, creative or not, can also be opened in the
[Review Queue](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/review-queue.md) from its row and edited there — answers,
feedback, marks, recommendation reasons, and your answers to the filmmaker's
questions. It stays approved either way; see
[Reading and editing a scorecard](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/editing-a-filed-scorecard.md). **The two
doors treat a switched-off feedback box differently**: saving from the chooser
empties it, saving in the Review Queue leaves it alone — see
[What filing does](#what-filing-does).

**The chooser's door closes when the category's creative scorecard changes.**
If an organization owner attaches a different creative scorecard to the
category in
[the library](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/categories-and-scorecards.md#what-an-attach-does-to-judging-already-under-way)
after you filed, your **Edit** row still opens — on the new scorecard, with its
questions unanswered — but **Save changes** is refused every time with "This
scorecard could not be filed. Nothing was recorded. Try again in a moment."
Trying again does not help. Open the card in the Review Queue instead: it
opens there with the questions it was filed on, and saves.

**On a press kit card, only your own marks are editable** — the field half is
read-only in the queue too, for the same reason it is read-only here. The way
to change a field item's answer is always to change the submission record.

Three things you cannot do:

- **You cannot un-approve it, or delete it.** Approval is one-way for every
  scorecard on FilmScorecard, staff filings included, and there is no verb that
  removes one. Editing is the correction path.
- **You cannot edit a colleague's card from the chooser.** Their creative card
  on the same category is theirs; the chooser offers you your own, or a fresh
  one. A colleague's card is corrected in the review queue, like any other.
- **You cannot edit a creative card whose category has been removed from the
  submission.** It is not deleted: it stays in the Review Queue, approved,
  labelled "*Drama Film* (removed)", counting toward nothing on the film. But
  the chooser no longer lists that category, and in the queue it opens
  read-only — "This scorecard's category was removed from the submission, so
  it can no longer be edited." See
  [A scorecard on a removed category](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/editing-a-filed-scorecard.md#a-scorecard-on-a-removed-category).

Withdrawing the submission takes your filings off the Submissions list with
the film.

## Where your filing shows up

| Screen | How it appears |
| --- | --- |
| [Submissions](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/submissions.md) list | In the row's score, its Scores-in ticks and its Scoring filter bucket, immediately. |
| [Submission panel → Scoring](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/opening-a-submission.md#the-scoring-tab) | In the category's arithmetic, and by name in the Scorecards card as "*Your name* (staff)". A press-kit filing also settles the [Press kit card](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/opening-a-submission.md#the-press-kit-card) there. |
| [Review Queue](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/review-queue.md) | A row on the Approved and All tabs. Judge column: "*Your name* (staff)", as plain text — there is no judge record behind it. |
| [Award pools](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/award-pools.md) | Any award you recommended, as a judge recommendation, counted in that entrant's Judge recs. |
| [Awards](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/awards.md) | Your card — creative, technical or press kit — is one of the approved scorecards a category's rank waits for before it can be released. |
| The filmmaker's released scorecard | One more numbered judge — no name, no marker, nothing that says staff. Your answers to their own questions arrive there too, in a card headed **You asked**. A press kit reaches them item by item, locked or unlocked: an item you passed reads **Provided**, one you failed reads "Not provided, so it did not count", and the note on a failed item does not reach them at all. |
| The filmmaker's submission page | Nothing you wrote. The first creative filing does turn their questions card read-only, with the date you filed on it. |
| A judge's screens | Nowhere by name, score or count. Its only effect there is on which films are offered, and in what order — see [What it does not do](#what-it-does-not-do). |

## What does not work yet

- **There is no way to file one for somebody else**, and no bulk filing: one
  scorecard, one film, one press.
- **Nothing marks a scorecard as staff-filed for the filmmaker**, by design —
  see [What filing does](#what-filing-does).
- **There is no void or delete.** See
  [Correcting a scorecard you filed](#correcting-a-scorecard-you-filed).
- **Nothing on a press kit card links to the field it is waiting for.** You
  read the item's name and go and find the field yourself on the Information
  tab.
- **Nothing on your screens lets you read a submission's own questions before
  you open a scoring form.** They are on the form and in the review queue's
  panel, and nowhere else.

## Related guides

- [Review Queue](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/review-queue.md) — where every filed scorecard, yours
  included, is read and approved.
- [Reading and editing a scorecard](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/editing-a-filed-scorecard.md) — the panel
  you correct a filing in.
- [Rewriting written feedback](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/rewriting-feedback.md) — the **Rewrite**
  button on the feedback boxes and on a filmmaker's free-text answer, here
  and in that panel.
- [Building a scorecard](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/building-a-scorecard.md) — where the questions you
  are answering were written, which feedback boxes are switched on, and where
  a press kit item's field is chosen.
- [Opening a submission](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/opening-a-submission.md) — the record a press kit's
  field items are read from, and the tab you fill it in on.
- [Letting submitters fix their own details](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/submission-links.md) — the page
  the filmmaker's own questions are written on.
- [Releasing scorecards](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/releasing-scorecards.md) — what the filmmaker
  eventually reads.
- [Awards](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/awards.md#releasing-a-categorys-rank) — the category rank your
  filing helps unlock.
- [How the judging queue works](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/how-the-judging-queue-works.md) — how your
  filings change which films judges are offered.