# How the judging queue works

> From FilmScorecard Help: https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/how-the-judging-queue-works

Nobody hands a judge a list of films. **The queue is worked out fresh every
time the screen loads**, from the season's submissions, the scope the festival
gave that judge, which films the festival has asked to have judged first —
and which it has held back — and what everybody has done so far.

This page explains the rules for judges, and answers the question coordinators
ask most: *why can my judge not see film X?*

## The ten rules, for judges

A film is in front of you when **all ten** of these are true. Miss one and it
is not offered to you.

1. **It belongs to the season you judge at that festival, and it is still a
   live submission.** A film the festival withdraws or disqualifies drops out
   of your queue immediately. **How the film got into the season makes no
   difference** — one typed in by a coordinator and one brought in from a
   FilmFreeway export are both live submissions.
2. **It fits the scope the festival gave you** — the submission type (films,
   screenplays or both) and the categories you were assigned. That scope is set
   by the festival, not by you.
3. **You have not already dealt with it, and you are not holding it right
   now.** A film you skipped or declined does not come back — **unless a
   coordinator sends it back to you**, which they can only do when you left it
   because the *film* was broken. See
   [A film came back to you](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/a-film-came-back-to-you.md). A film you filed a
   card on has been dealt with — unless what you filed was its technical
   review and you judge creative too, which is covered in
   [Waiting for the technical review](#waiting-for-the-technical-review). And
   a film you *started* leaves the queue for as long as you hold it — though
   it is still what your judging home shows you. See [A film you started](#a-film-you-started).
4. **There is still a card on it for you to take.** A film is judged
   separately in every category it competes in, and every season sets **how
   many creative scorecards each category needs**. So a film in two categories
   needs that many in each. You are offered the film while at least one of its
   categories that you judge is still short, and when you take it you are given
   the category with the fewest. The technical card is only ever held by one
   judge. Once there is nothing left on that film for you, it leaves your
   queue.
5. **That season's judging has opened.** Two things have to be true: the
   festival has opened judging on the season, **and** the opening date it set
   has passed. Until both are, the films sit as "upcoming". A season with no
   dates set at all has not opened, and neither has one whose date has passed
   but which the festival has not opened yet — your judging home says
   "Judging hasn't opened yet" for that one.
6. **You did not submit it yourself.** See [Your own
   submissions](#your-own-submissions).
7. **You have not paused new assignments.** See [If you paused new
   assignments](#if-you-paused-new-assignments).
8. **You can open its screener.** A film whose only screener link is a
   FilmFreeway one is offered to you only if **that festival has turned
   FilmFreeway access on for you** on that season. That is the festival's
   switch, not the FilmFreeway box on your own account. See
   [The FilmFreeway rule](#the-filmfreeway-rule).
9. **The festival has not held it back from judging.** A festival can put any
   submission **On hold**, and a film on hold is offered to no judge — it is
   not in your queue, your open count or your upcoming count. Nothing on your
   screens says a film is on hold, or that there is one; it simply is not
   there, and it arrives like any other film once the festival sets it Ready.
10. **For a creative scorecard, the film's technical review has been
    approved.** Unless the festival has switched this off for the season, a
    film's creative scorecard in a category waits until the technical review
    that category uses has been filed and the festival has approved it. Until
    then the film counts as upcoming. See
    [Waiting for the technical review](#waiting-for-the-technical-review).

The rules are checked when the screen loads, so a queue can change under you
between one visit and the next without anybody doing anything to your account.

**And one rule sits above all ten:** while you are holding a film, no film is
drawn from the queue at all. See
[One film at a time](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/one-film-at-a-time.md).

## Why your total shrinks

The line on your festival card — "4 of 28 scored" — is **your own workload**:
what you have dealt with, plus what is still open to you. It is not the size of
the festival.

Rule 4 is why it moves. A film leaves your queue as soon as there is no card on
it left for you:

- **The creative card**, once every category of that film you can judge has as
  many scorecards as the season asks for — counting the ones being worked on
  right now as well as the ones already filed.
- **The technical card**, once any judge is holding or has filed it. There is
  only ever one.

**Watching 28 become 26 while you are working is the system doing its job**,
not a mistake and not work taken away from you. It means those films are
covered. A film in two categories tends to stay longer than a film in one,
because it needs a full set of scorecards in each.

**Rule 9 moves it too.** A film the festival puts on hold leaves your total
along with everybody else's, and comes back into it when the festival sets it
Ready.

It moves the other way too: a festival that adds submissions to a season
mid-judging adds them to everybody's queue, **a film somebody took but never
filed comes back** when their hold lapses, a festival that adds a category to a
film opens a fresh set of places on it, and **a film you reported as broken
comes back** if a coordinator fixes it and hands it to you. That last one also
takes a step off your "skipped" total, because it is a round trip rather than
something you dealt with.

**And it moves when the festival changes the categories you judge** (rule 2).
An added category brings its films into your queue; a removed one takes its
films out. You are told either way, by email and a line in
[your inbox](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/your-inbox.md#your-categories-changed).

**And it moves as technical reviews are approved** (rule 10). A film waiting on
its technical review is counted as upcoming, not in your total, and joins the
total once the festival approves the review.

## Waiting for the technical review

Where a category uses a technical review, each film in it is checked once by a
technical reviewer, and on most seasons **its creative scorecard waits for
that check**: you are offered a film for creative judging only once its
technical review has been filed and the festival has approved it. The festival
decides this for each season, and it is on unless they switch it off.

- **A waiting film counts as upcoming**, not as open, in your numbers.
- **When nothing else is ready**, your judging home reads "Nothing to score
  right now" and says how many films are waiting — "3 films are waiting for
  their technical review and will appear here once approved." It never says
  which films, or anything about who is reviewing them. Nothing is emailed to
  you; the screen checks again when you come back to its tab.
- **Each category waits on its own.** A film in two categories can reach you
  in one of them before the other.
- **A category with no technical review never waits.**
- **A creative scorecard already in your hands is yours to finish.** If the
  festival switches the wait on while you are holding one, you can still file
  it, and a scorecard the festival sends back to you can be filed again.
- **If you judge both technical and creative**, you can be given a film's
  technical review on its own, file it, and be offered its creative scorecard
  once the festival has approved your review — the same wait as anybody else.
- **A film a coordinator hands back to you** after you left it because it was
  broken is not held: it reaches you whether or not its technical review has
  been approved. See [A film came back to you](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/a-film-came-back-to-you.md).

## The FilmFreeway rule

Some submissions can only be watched on FilmFreeway — the only screener link on
their record is a FilmFreeway one — and FilmFreeway decides, festival by
festival, who may open them. So **whether such a submission is offered to you
is the festival's decision, made per season.** Every place you hold carries a
**FilmFreeway access** switch that the festival sets when it invites you and
its coordinators can change afterwards on their roster.

**With that switch off, a film whose only screener link is a FilmFreeway one is
not offered to you on that season.** It is not put at the bottom of the pile
and it is not saved for later: it is out of your queue, out of your open count,
and not what you are shown next.

- **Nothing tells you a film was held back.** Your total is simply smaller, in
  exactly the way it is smaller when a festival scopes you to two categories.
- **You cannot see the switch.** Nothing on your screens shows where it stands
  for any festival; what you see is its effect. If a festival's FilmFreeway
  films are not reaching you and you think they should, ask its coordinator to
  turn FilmFreeway access on for you.
- **Off is where every place starts.** A festival that wants FilmFreeway-only
  films to reach you turns the switch on — on the invitation, or later.
- **Turning it on brings them in on your next visit**, with no notice to you.
- **A film you are already holding is untouched.** If the festival turns the
  switch off mid-sitting, that film stays on your judging home and stays
  scorable — you can file it, skip it or hand it back. You just cannot pick it
  up again once you let it go, until the switch is on.
- **A film with no screener link at all is not a FilmFreeway film.** You are
  still offered it, and reporting the missing link is the right thing to do.
- **A coordinator can still hand you one**, after you reported a problem with
  it — they are told the film's only screener is on FilmFreeway, that you have
  no FilmFreeway access on the season, and that turning access on for you
  makes it appear. It waits in your queue until they do.

**This changed.** The **I have a FilmFreeway account** tick box on
[your account](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/your-account.md#filmfreeway-account) used to be this rule:
unticked, FilmFreeway-only films were withheld from you; ticked, they came
back. **It no longer decides anything about your queue.** Festivals see your
answer when they invite you and beside their switch afterwards, and it informs
their decision without making it — see
[FilmFreeway account](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/your-account.md#filmfreeway-account). Keep it accurate
all the same.

## A film you started

Pressing **Start scoring** takes the film's cards and holds them for **48
hours**. While you hold them the film is out of the queue — everybody's,
including your own — but **your judging home keeps showing it to you**, as the
Next submission, with an **In progress** pill and a **Continue scoring**
button. Nothing new is offered beside it.

What happens next depends on you:

| What you do | What happens to the film |
| --- | --- |
| File every card you hold | Dealt with. It never comes back to you, and its place is taken for good. Your judging home moves on to a new film. The one exception is a technical review you filed while its creative scorecard was waiting — see [Waiting for the technical review](#waiting-for-the-technical-review). |
| File one of two cards | You are still holding the other, so the film is still your Next submission with **Continue scoring** on it. It leaves you when the second card is filed. |
| File nothing for 48 hours | The hold lapses. The film returns to **every** judge's queue, yours included, with everything you typed still on it, and you are offered a new film. Picking it up again can put you on a different scorecard, which clears your answers to the old one — see [Picking a lapsed film up again](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/scoring-a-film.md#picking-a-lapsed-film-up-again). |
| Hand it back — **Skip: technical issue**, or **Decline** with **Other** | Gone from your queue, and everybody else still has it. A coordinator reads what you wrote and can hand it back to you once they have fixed it. |
| Hand it back — **Decline** for a conflict, your expertise or the deadline, or **Declare a conflict** | Gone from your queue for good; everybody else still has it, and nothing can return it to you. |

**If the festival puts the film on hold while you are holding it, it stays
yours.** You can go on scoring it and file it exactly as before, and nobody
else is offered it meanwhile. What changes is what happens if you let it go: a
lapsed hold or a hand-back no longer returns it to anybody's queue — yours
included — until the festival sets it Ready again. Nothing on your screen says
any of this has happened.

**If the festival takes the film's category out of what you judge while you are
holding it, it stays yours too.** You can finish it and file it — creative card
or technical — and it pays your agreed rate. Once you let it go, it is offered
to you again only through a category you still judge.

**Nothing warns you before a hold lapses**, and nothing on screen counts it
down. See [Scoring a film](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/scoring-a-film.md) and
[One film at a time](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/one-film-at-a-time.md).

**A scorecard the festival sends back to you is not a film you are holding.**
It is filed work reopened for changes, listed at the top of your judging home
with **Make changes** — it takes no place in the queue, has no 48-hour clock,
and never stops you starting a new film. See
[Scorecards sent back to you](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/your-judging-home.md#scorecards-sent-back-to-you).

## If you paused new assignments

**Pausing empties your queue at every festival at once** — no new film is
offered to you until you resume. It is your own switch, on the Availability tab
of [your account](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/your-account.md#pausing-new-assignments), and it is
separate from a festival pausing your access to one season.

Three things stay true while you are paused:

- **Anything you had already started stays yours**, keeps its deadline and
  stays scorable — and stays on your judging home with **Continue scoring** on
  it. A pause takes away new work, not work in hand.
- **Films that have not opened yet are unaffected.** A season whose judging has
  not started is still going to start.
- **Coordinators at every festival you are active on are emailed once**, and
  your card in the judges directory reads "Paused, not taking new work".

**A film a coordinator sends back to you while you are paused waits for you**
rather than being refused — it is the first thing you meet when you resume.

The screen you land on says "Nothing to score right now" without mentioning the
pause. The amber banner on your account is where it is named, and **Resume
now** on that banner puts everything back — as does the automatic resume date,
if you set one.

## Which film comes next

Your judging home shows one film. **The film you are holding always comes
first** — see [One film at a time](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/one-film-at-a-time.md). When your hands
are empty, the next film is chosen from your queue by these six questions, in
order. **Each one only decides between films that the questions above it left
level.**

1. **Did a coordinator send it back to you?** A film sent back comes before
   everything else. If two came back, the one the festival dealt with first
   comes first.
2. **Has the festival asked to have it judged first?** Festivals can mark
   particular films to be finished early. Nothing on the film tells you it is
   one of them.
3. **Has somebody already started it?** A film other people are part-way
   through comes before one nobody has touched yet.
4. **Does it even out the lengths you have been given?** Your films so far are
   measured against the average length of the films in your scope that season —
   minutes for films, pages for screenplays. If yours have run longer than that
   average, longer-than-average films are put behind the rest; if they have run
   shorter, shorter-than-average films are. **A film with no recorded length is
   never put behind** for this, and nothing is before you have taken your first
   film of the season.
5. **How close is it to finished?** The film that needs the fewest more
   scorecards, from anybody, comes first.
6. **Your own fixed order.** When everything above is level, every judge has an
   order of their own, so two judges on the same season meet otherwise-equal
   films in different orders.

It is not alphabetical, not by deadline, and not the order the festival
received them. **What it adds up to is that a season's judges finish films
rather than each starting a different one**, and that the lengths of each
judge's films even out over the season.

**The film at the front can change between visits** without you doing anything
— another judge starting or finishing a film, or the festival marking one, is
enough. Once you press **Start scoring** the film is yours, and nothing moves
it.

**And you cannot get ahead of it.** Starting a film blocks every other film in
that season until you finish it or hand it back, so a judge cannot open ten
films and leave nine of them sitting. See
[One film at a time](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/one-film-at-a-time.md).

A festival's FilmFreeway access switch decides whether FilmFreeway-only films
are offered to you at all, and has nothing to say about the order of the rest;
your own FilmFreeway answer, which once pushed some films to the bottom of the
pile, now moves nothing — see [The FilmFreeway rule](#the-filmfreeway-rule).

**There is no way to look ahead, search the queue, or choose a different
film.** Score the one in front of you, or [skip it](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/skipping-a-film.md).

### If the film is gone when you press Start scoring

Because judges are steered towards the same nearly finished films, the film on
your screen can fill up between your judging home loading and your press. When
that happens nothing is taken, and you land back on your judging home with an
amber line above the next film:

> That film is no longer available. Here's your next one.

If there is no other film for you, it reads **"That film is no longer
available."** on its own, above the empty state.

- **It is the same line whatever the reason** — another judge took the last
  place, the festival withdrew the film or put it on hold, your scope changed —
  and it never says which.
- **It shows once.** **Dismiss** hides it, and it does not come back when you
  reload.
- **It does not appear if you are already holding a different film** — pressing
  Start scoring in an old tab, say. Your judging home simply shows the film you
  hold.
- **Next film in your queue**, on the scoring screen, behaves the same way if
  the film it reaches for has gone.

## What you never see

No judge sees another judge — not their name, not their scores, not an average,
not even how many judges a film already has. **Nor are you told why a film was
put in front of you.** **The only traces of other judges' work are that films
quietly leave your queue**, the "That film is no longer available." line when a
film fills up before you press Start, how many films are waiting for their
technical review — a count, never which films or whose review — and one line
on the scoring screen: a card can tell you it went back to the queue after
your hold lapsed, and it never says who took it.

**Festival staff are anonymous to you as well.** When a film comes back to you
with a note about what was fixed, the note is signed by nobody — see
[A film came back to you](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/a-film-came-back-to-you.md#what-you-are-never-told).

That is not a festival setting. It cannot be switched on by anybody, for
anybody.

## Your own submissions

**A film you submitted yourself never appears in your own queue once it is
saved to your FilmScorecard account**, at any festival, even if the festival
forgot you are also an entrant. It is excluded from your counts too, and no
coordinator can send you one.

**It is saved to your account by itself** the next time you log in with an
emailed code, or open **Your projects**, when the address the festival has on
the submission is the address you log in with — **once your account has a
project**. Until then, nothing is saved by itself: open **Your projects** (the
address `/projects`) and press **Open** on the welcome screen there, which
makes your first project from it. See
[Your first project](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/your-first-project.md).

A submission entered under another address is saved with its access code, from
the festival's email: press **Save to your account** on its submission page or
scorecard while signed in, or **Add an entry** on one of your projects. (**Keep
it**, on the scorecard, logs in on the address the festival has, so it saves
the submission to that address's account, not yours.) See
[Saving a submission to your account](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/saving-a-submission-to-your-account.md).

**Until then there is nothing to match on**, and the film can reach you. If a
film in front of you is yours, skip it with **Conflict of interest** and tell
the festival.

**If you are holding the film when it is saved**, your hold is let go as if you
had released it: the film leaves your judging home and goes back to the other
judges. **A card you had already filed on it stays filed.**

## Two seasons at one festival

If a festival has you judging more than one season of the same festival, **only
the most recent season's year is reachable** from your judging home. There is
no way to switch back to the older one. Ask the festival if you need to work in
it.

---

# For coordinators: why can my judge not see film X?

Run down this list in order. It is written to catch the common causes first,
and everything on it is decided by the rules above rather than by anything
assigned by hand. If the question is instead *why is my judge being given this
film before that one*, the answer is
[Which film comes next](#which-film-comes-next) — and the lever you hold over
it is [Priority](#putting-a-film-first).

**Check the hold before anything else.** A film you or a colleague put **On
hold** — on its own, in bulk, or by choosing **On hold** when it was imported —
reaches no judge at all. It is the newest cause on this list, so it is the
last one, but it is the quickest to rule out: the Submissions screen's
**Judging** column says **Ready** or **On hold** on every row. See
[12. The film is On hold](#12-the-film-is-on-hold).

**Then check the technical review, if the judge is missing a creative
scorecard.** Every season waits for it unless you switched that off: no judge
is offered a film's creative scorecard until its technical review has been
filed and approved in the Review Queue. See
[13. Its technical review has not been approved](#13-its-technical-review-has-not-been-approved).

**One entry has left this list.** Submissions brought in by the FilmFreeway
import used to reach no judge's queue at all — they were recorded in a state the
queue rule did not accept. **They reach judges now**, on exactly the same terms
as any other submission: once the season's judging has opened, an imported film
is offered to whoever is in scope for it. If you had judges sitting on "Nothing
to score right now" with a full submissions list behind them, that was why, and
it is fixed.

### 1. The judge is already holding a film

**A judge holds one film at a time.** From the moment they press Start scoring
until they file every card on that film or hand it back, they are offered
nothing else on that season — so "I can only see one film and it is not the one
you asked about" is normal, not a fault. **That includes a film you have just
sent back to them, and a film you have marked Priority**: it is next, not now.

They are not stuck: filing finishes it, and Skip, Decline or Declare a conflict
on the scoring screen hands it back. **A hold that is simply abandoned clears
itself after 48 hours** and the judge is offered something new. **You cannot
release a judge's hold for them**, and no screen shows you what any judge is
currently holding.

### 2. The judge is not Active on the season

Only a judge whose roster status is **Active** has a queue. **Invited (not yet
accepted), Paused, Declined and Removed judges have none** — and the screen
they see does not say why. They get "No festival has assigned you films yet",
the same card as somebody no festival has ever invited.

So a judge who says "it says no festival has assigned me films" is usually
paused, or has never accepted the invitation. Check their row on the season's
[Judges](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/judges.md) screen.

### 3. The judge has paused their own account

**A judge can pause new assignments for themselves**, across every festival
they judge for, from their own account screen. While they are paused they are
offered nothing new anywhere — including on your season.

**Their row on your roster still reads Active**, because their status on your
season has not changed. Two places show it: the email you were sent when they
paused, and their card in the [judges directory](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/judges-directory.md), which
reads "Paused, not taking new work". Only the judge can lift it. See
[When a judge pauses or asks to leave](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/when-a-judge-pauses-or-leaves.md).

A third place, if there is anything to send back to them: the
[Issue tab](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/screener-problems.md) says "This judge has paused their account.
The film waits in their queue and appears when they return." — and lets you
send it anyway.

### 4. The submission is withdrawn or disqualified

Both drop out of every queue immediately. Selection status — In Consideration,
Selected, Not Selected — makes no difference at all; a Not Selected film is
still judged. **Neither does how the submission got here**: an imported film and
a hand-entered one are the same thing to the queue.

### 5. The film is outside the judge's scope

Two axes, both set by you under **What a judge may be assigned** on the
[Judges](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/judges.md) screen:

- **Submission type** — a judge scoped to films only is never offered a
  screenplay.
- **Categories** — a judge scoped to specific categories is only offered films
  attached to those categories. A film attached to none of them is invisible to
  them, however good a fit it looks.

**The judge's own profile does not filter anything.** The formats, genres,
languages and weekly capacity they entered when they set up their profile are
preferences for you to read — and so, now, is their FilmFreeway answer; see the
next item. They change nothing about what reaches them. The scope you set is
what does.

**Check the scope of an accepted applicant before you assume it is wide.** A
judge who arrived through one of your open calls is scoped to the categories
they asked for on their application, and to the kind of work they said they
could cover — see
[What accepting does](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/judge-requests.md#what-accepting-does).

**Taking a category out of a judge's scope stops new films from it, not the
one in their hand.** A film they are holding in it stays theirs to finish, and
pays their agreed rate. Widening an accepted paid judge's scope asks you for
their rate in each added category — see
[Judging scope](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/judges.md#judging-scope).

### 6. The screener is on FilmFreeway and the judge's FilmFreeway access is off

**A submission whose only screener link is a FilmFreeway one is offered only to
the judges you have turned FilmFreeway access on for**, on this season. With it
off, the film is absent from that judge's queue and from their open count, and
nothing on their screen says so.

- **The switch is on the [Judges](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/judges.md#filmfreeway-access) screen** —
  the FilmFreeway column on the judge's row, and the FilmFreeway card on the
  Access tab of their panel. It moves the moment you press it.
- **Off is where every judge starts.** An invitation writes it from the switch
  in the invite dialog, which is off unless you turned it on, and a judge
  accepted from an open-call application arrives with it off. Sort the
  FilmFreeway column to gather the judges it is off for.
- **This changed.** It used to be the judge's own answer — the **I have a
  FilmFreeway account** box on their account — that decided this, and you had
  no control over it. Their answer is now shown to you beside the switch, as
  "Judge says: has a FilmFreeway account" or "Judge says: no FilmFreeway
  account", and decides nothing; the switch is yours. Read the line before you
  flip it: a judge who says they have no account cannot open the screener
  whatever the switch says.
- **Turn it on and the film appears** in the judge's queue on their next
  visit. Nothing is sent to them.
- **Sending such a film back to that judge is still allowed.** The
  [Issue tab](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/screener-problems.md#the-filmfreeway-sentence) names the
  obstacle — "This film's only screener is on FilmFreeway and this judge has
  no FilmFreeway access on this season. The film waits in their queue and
  appears if you turn access on for them, or you can share the file another
  way." — and leaves the button live. The film waits for them.
- **A film with no screener link at all is not affected.** It reaches every
  judge in scope, and reporting the missing link is what the Issue tab is for.
- **Fixing the link fixes the film for everybody.** Putting the screener
  somewhere else — the same field the Issue panel edits — puts the film back in
  every in-scope judge's queue, whatever their switch says.

### 7. Every place on it is taken

Each season sets **Judges per category** on Settings → Judging: how many
creative scorecards **each category a submission competes in** needs. A
submission is judged separately in every category it is attached to, so a film
in two categories needs that many in each — at 3, six creative scorecards in
all. A judge takes only one creative card on a film, so that is six different
judges, unless your own team fills some of the places. The technical card is
held by exactly one judge whatever the number says.

A judge is offered a film while one of its categories **that they may score**
is still short, and pressing Start scoring gives them whichever of those has the
fewest. Once nothing is left for them, the film leaves their queue. **So a
judge scoped to one category stops seeing a film as soon as that category is
full**, even while the film's other category is still looking for judges —
the judges scoped to that other category, or to every category, go on being
offered it.

Things worth knowing:

- **A place is claimed the moment a judge presses Start scoring**, before they
  have scored anything. It is a 48-hour hold, and it is the only film that
  judge can hold on your season until it is resolved.
- **Your own team's scorecards fill places too.** A creative scorecard you or a
  colleague file from
  [Fill out a scorecard](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/filling-out-a-scorecard.md) counts toward its
  category's number exactly as a judge's does, so filling a gap yourself means
  one judge fewer is sent to it. It never takes a film away from a judge who is
  already scoring it: if a judge is holding a place on that category when you
  file, they keep it, and the category ends one over.
- **A hold that lapses gives the place back.** A judge who opens a film and
  files nothing releases it after 48 hours, and the film returns to every
  queue, including theirs, with their draft kept. If that judge comes back and
  files while the place is still free, the scorecard counts as normal; **if
  their category filled up while the hold was lapsed** — by other judges, or by
  a scorecard from your own team — their card can no longer be filed, and they
  are told it "went back to the queue". A card on one of the film's other
  categories is unaffected by the first one filling.
- **Picking a lapsed film up again can move a judge to a different
  scorecard**: another of the film's categories with its own creative
  scorecard, when that one has the fewest scorecards as they press Start
  scoring; the film's other technical checklist; or the new one, if the
  category's scorecard was changed in the library meanwhile. Their answers to
  the old scorecard's questions are then cleared, and nothing tells them. Their
  feedback boxes, award recommendations and answers to the filmmaker's own
  questions stay. See
  [What an attach does to judging already under way](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/categories-and-scorecards.md#what-an-attach-does-to-judging-already-under-way).
- **A skip never counts toward it.** A film three judges skipped still needs
  its full complement of scores.
- **Attaching another category to a film opens a fresh set of places.** The
  film comes back into the queues of the judges who can score the new category.
- **Removing a category takes its places away.** A creative scorecard a judge
  had filed or started under a category the film has left no longer fills any
  place on the film — see
  [Editing a submission's categories](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/submissions.md#editing-a-submissions-categories).
- **There is no coverage read-out for your judges' work in progress.** No
  screen lists who holds a given film or whose hold is about to lapse. The
  nearest thing is the chooser behind
  [Fill out a scorecard](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/filling-out-a-scorecard.md#reading-the-chooser),
  whose Creative row counts the scorecards filed on each category and names the
  judges already on it. The other place the arithmetic surfaces is the
  [Issue tab](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/screener-problems.md), which will refuse a send-back with "No
  scorecard slot is free on this film." **Whether your roster could cover the
  season at all** is a different question, and the season's dashboard does
  answer it — see
  [The two warnings](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/opening-judging.md#the-two-warnings).

### 8. Judging has not opened

**Judges are offered films only once two things are both true**: somebody has
pressed [Open judging](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/opening-judging.md) on the season's dashboard, **and**
the opening date on Settings → Season has passed. Until then, everything sits
as "upcoming" and no judge has anything to do — whichever of the two is
missing.

- **A season you have not opened offers nothing, whatever its dates say.** Once
  its opening date has passed, its judges see "Judging hasn't opened yet" and
  "*Your festival* hasn't opened judging yet." — with no date — and every
  screen of the season carries an amber banner for you: "Judging isn't open
  yet. Judges can't see any films until you open judging from the dashboard."
  Press **Open judging** and the films reach them the next time they look.
- **A season you have opened whose opening date is still ahead** offers nothing
  until that date, and its judges see "Judging opens *the day*".
- **A season with no judging dates set at all** has not opened either, and
  its judges see an empty queue with no date.

Set both dates on Settings → Season, on the Dates card (see
[Festival settings](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/festival-settings.md#dates)), then open judging from the
season's dashboard.

**The closing date does not take work away.** After it passes, films stay in
judges' queues, wear an amber "past due" mark and stay scorable. Extending the
window is simply pushing the closing date out.

### 9. The judge already dealt with it

Skipped, declined, or filed — any of those removes the film from that judge.
**A filed film and the three "not me" reasons — conflict of interest, outside
their expertise, cannot finish in time — cannot be given back to that judge**,
by you or by anybody. The film stays available to every other judge on the
season.

**The two reasons about the film itself are different.** A judge who reported
**Screener will not play**, or picked **Other**, appears on the
[Issue tab](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/screener-problems.md) with what they wrote — and **Send back to
*name*** puts that film at the front of their queue once you have fixed it. If
you cannot fix it, **Dismiss** closes the matter and the film stays out of
their queue for good.

**Merely opening a film is not permanent.** A judge who started and filed
nothing gets it back when their hold lapses, 48 hours later.

**Sending a *scorecard* back is not sending the film back.** **Send back to
judge** on the [Review Queue](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/review-queue.md#sending-a-scorecard-back-to-its-judge)
reopens a filed scorecard for its judge to change and file again; it puts
nothing in their queue and takes no place on the film.

**A scorecard on a category the film has since left does not count as dealing
with it.** A judge who scored a film in a category you then removed can be
offered the same film again, for one of its remaining categories.

### 10. The judge is the submitter

**A film saved to the judge's own FilmScorecard account is excluded from their
queue automatically**, and the Issue tab will not send it to them. It is saved
there by itself when the judge logs in, or opens **Your projects**, with the
address the submission was entered under, **once their account has a
project**; before that, it is saved when they open their first project from
it. A submission entered under another address reaches the judge's account
only with its access code, through **Save to your account** on its submission
page or scorecard, or **Add an entry** on one of their projects. (**Keep it**,
on the scorecard, logs in on the address the submission was entered under.)
See
[Saving a submission to your account](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/saving-a-submission-to-your-account.md).

- **If the judge was holding it at that moment**, their hold is let go and the
  film goes back to the other judges.
- **A scorecard they had already filed on it stands.** Nothing removes it; read
  it, and decide what to do with it, in the [Review Queue](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/review-queue.md).

The **Conflict** mark on the season's Judges screen tells you when a judge's
email matches a submitter this season, and it is worth reading — the automatic
exclusion only covers a submission saved to the judge's account, so a film
entered under another address, or one whose judge has not logged in since it
was imported, can still reach them.

### 11. It is an older season of that festival

A judge who holds a place on two seasons of one festival only reaches the most
recent one.

### 12. The film is On hold

**A submission On hold is offered to no judge**, whatever every other rule
says. It is out of every judge's queue, their open count, their upcoming count
and the **Remaining** figure on your roster. It is still on your Submissions
list, still counted on your dashboard and award screens, and you and your
colleagues can still
[fill in a scorecard for it yourselves](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/filling-out-a-scorecard.md).

- **Where to see it**: the **Judging** column on the
  [Submissions](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/submissions.md#holding-a-submission-out-of-judging) screen
  reads **On hold**, and the **Judging** filter gathers every held film. The
  season's dashboard counts them — "4 submissions on hold".
- **How it got there**: somebody turned on **Hold from judges** on the
  submission's Settings tab, pressed **Hold** on the bulk bar with it ticked, or
  imported it in a batch confirmed with **On hold**.
- **How to undo it**: set it **Ready** — turn the same switch off, or **Ready**
  on the bulk bar. It is offered to judges again on their next visit.
- **A judge already holding it when it was put on hold keeps it**, and can
  finish and file it. Nobody else is offered it meanwhile, and if that judge
  lets it go — a lapse or a hand-back — it goes to nobody until it is Ready.
- **You cannot send a held film back to a judge.** The Issue tab says "This
  submission is on hold for judging. Set it Ready, then send it back." — see
  [When a film cannot go back](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/screener-problems.md#when-a-film-cannot-go-back).
- **Priority does nothing while it is held.** A held film marked **Judge this
  first** is in nobody's queue, so there is nothing to put first until it is
  Ready.

### 13. Its technical review has not been approved

**With Creative judging waits for technical approval on** — Settings →
Judging, on the Scoring card, and on for every season unless you turned it off
— a film's creative scorecard in a category is offered to no judge until the
technical review that category uses has been approved. See
[Creative judging waits for technical approval](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/festival-settings.md#creative-judging-waits-for-technical-approval).

- **Filed is not enough.** A technical review on the Review Queue's Pending
  tab, or one you sent back to its judge, keeps the creative scorecard
  waiting. **Approving it** — one at a time or in bulk — opens the film to
  creative judges the next time each of them looks. See
  [What approving does](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/review-queue.md#what-approving-does).
- **Nobody has filed it.** If no judge with the technical role can reach the
  category, the season's dashboard says so — "No technical judge yet, so
  creative judging is on hold". Fill the technical review in yourself and it
  is approved as you file, which opens the film at once — see
  [Filling out a scorecard yourself](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/filling-out-a-scorecard.md).
- **The approval was lost.** If the judge who filed an approved technical
  review later withdrew from the film — a conflict of interest, or a screener
  that will not play — their review went with them, and the film waits again
  until another one is approved.
- **Each category waits on its own**, and a category with no technical
  scorecard never waits.
- **Your judges count the waiting films as upcoming**, and one with nothing
  else to do is told how many films are waiting for their technical review —
  never which ones.
- **Three things are never held**: a creative scorecard a judge was already
  holding, one you sent back to its judge, and a film you send back to a judge
  from the [Issue tab](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/screener-problems.md). Your own team's filings are
  never held either.

## Putting a film first

**Priority** is the one general control you have over the order. Switching on
**Judge this first**, on the Settings tab of a submission's detail panel, moves
that film to the front of the queue of **every judge who can take it**.
Setting it, the mark it leaves on the list and the filter that finds it are on
[Submissions](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/submissions.md#priority-judge-this-first); what it does to the
queue is here.

- **Only two things come before it**: the film a judge is already holding, and
  a film you sent back to that judge.
- **It changes the order and nothing else.** A judge is still only offered a
  priority film if every rule above lets them — in their scope, a place free in
  a category they may score, FilmFreeway access if it needs it, not their own
  submission, judging open, not on hold. A priority film whose categories all
  have their full panel is in nobody's queue.
- **Every priority film is equal.** It makes no difference which you marked
  first, and there are no levels. Among them, judges follow the rest of the
  usual order — films already started first, then length, then the one nearest
  to finished — so marking twenty films gets them finished one after another
  rather than all begun at once.
- **It takes effect the next time each judge's judging home loads.** Nothing
  is sent to anybody.
- **No judge is ever told.** There is no mark on the film, nothing on the
  scoring screen and nothing in any email — a judge cannot tell a priority film
  from any other.
- **A finished film's mark does nothing.** Once every category has its panel,
  the film is in no queue, so there is nothing left to put first. The same goes
  for a film that is withdrawn, disqualified or on hold.

## Two things that are not what you would expect

- **Every judge on a roster is a scoring judge.** There is no judging role that
  reviews other people's work instead of filing scorecards, so "they are only
  a coordinator" is never the reason a queue is empty — a judging coordinator
  is a member of your organization rather than somebody on the panel. See
  [Judging coordinators are staff, not judges](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/judges.md#judging-coordinators-are-staff-not-judges).
- **Judges cannot see the size of the season**, so "there are 40 films and I
  have only seen 12" is not a question they can ask from their own screen.
  Their numbers are always their own workload.

## What you cannot do from any screen

Stated plainly so you do not go looking:

- **Assign a specific film to a specific judge.** Nothing in FilmScorecard works
  that way — the queue is derived, always. **Sending a film back is not an
  exception**: it returns a film to the judge who reported it, and there is no
  way to hand that film to a different judge instead.
- **See what a judge has in front of them**, or what they have filed but not
  submitted. Those records are kept and waiting for the screen that shows them.
- **See every reason a judge left a film.** The two that describe a broken
  film are on the [Issue tab](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/screener-problems.md), with the note in full.
  Conflicts, expertise and deadline declines are recorded and counted and
  appear on no screen.
- **Put a film first for one judge, rank priority films against each other, or
  push a film to the back.** Priority is one switch that applies to every judge
  who can take the film; the only move that is about one judge is sending a
  reported film back to the front of that judge's queue. **Holding a film
  takes it away from every judge at once** — there is no hold for one judge.
- **Release a judge's hold early**, or extend one past 48 hours.
- **Lift a judge's own pause.** Yours is a separate control; theirs is theirs.
- **Turn FilmFreeway access on for every judge at once.** The switch is per
  judge, on their row or their panel; there is no bulk switch and no filter on
  the column. And **a judge's FilmFreeway handle** is shown nowhere — only
  whether they say they have an account.