Importing from the default list

FilmScorecard keeps a default list: a ready-made set of submission categories, each with its own creative scorecard and its own default judge pay, and a set of award categories with the submission categories allowed to enter each one already chosen. A new organization starts with none of it. You take what you want from the list, when you want it, and whatever you take becomes an ordinary part of your own library — yours to rename, edit, archive or leave alone.

There are two ways in:

• Your library, on its Categories and Awards tabs — the Import from default list button, and, on a tab that is still empty, the presets shown in its place. Both import into your library and nowhere else. See Importing from your library and On an empty library tab.
• The FilmFreeway import, whose category step can map a file's category to one on the default list. See From a FilmFreeway import.

Both copy in exactly the same way — see What an import brings.

What a new organization starts with

Three shared scorecards, and nothing else:

• Film Technical
• Screenplay Technical
• Press Kit

They arrive with all their questions. There are no categories, no creative scorecards and no awards: the library's Scorecards tab lists those three, each "Used by 0 categories", and its empty Categories and Awards tabs offer the presets to an owner — see On an empty library tab.

So your first festival, and its first season, are created with no categories and no awards. The Welcome page you land on sends you to your library for them, and the library's Import from default list button is there whenever you want it afterwards. What the other screens say in the meantime is listed under Before you have any categories.

The three shared scorecards are what the technical and press kit slots of every imported category are filled from — see A category.

What is on the default list

Today the list holds 73 categories and 28 awards.

The categories. 37 film categories — seven of them written for series episodes, which are judged as films — and 36 screenplay categories: twelve genres, each as a short screenplay, a teleplay and a feature screenplay. Every one has an approved description. Most carry their approved maximum as a ready-set length, such as max 30 min or max 60 pages; the twelve feature screenplays carry min 61 pages; and the two documentaries carry both ends, Documentary Feature Film 31–120 min and Documentary Short Film 7–30 min.

Every category comes with its own creative scorecard, named after the category and carrying that category's own questions — from 5 to 13 of them, because they come from the approved judging documents rather than a round number. Every question on them is a 1-to-10 scale.

Every category comes with default judge pay, the same for its technical and its creative scorecard: $2.00 a scorecard for a short category — a film or an episode capped at 30 minutes or less, or a screenplay capped at 60 pages or less — and $4.00 for every other, which is any longer cap, a minimum only, or no length at all.

The awards. Each carries a description and a set of eligible categories already chosen:

"The films" is every film category that is neither the feature nor a series episode, and that includes the music videos, Sketch Comedy and Stand-Up Comedy.

The descriptions state rules FilmScorecard does not check — "six minutes or less, including credits", "must currently reside outside the 50 United States", "verified by a student ID", "identified as a proof of concept in the Press Kit". The eligible categories decide which submissions may enter an award; whether a particular film meets the rest of the description is for your judges and coordinators. Nothing compares a film's running time, or its makers' residence, or anything else, against it.

Who can import

Organization owners, from the library. Everyone else in your organization sees neither the button nor the presets.

The one exception is the FilmFreeway import: anyone who can run an import can map a file's category to the default list, and that category is imported into your library when the import runs. See From a FilmFreeway import.

Importing from your library

1. Open Categories and scorecards in the left navigation, on the Categories or the Awards tab.
2. Choose Import from default list. It sits in the toolbar beside + New category or + New award category. On the Awards tab it is on the Active view only, like the New button beside it. On a tab that is still empty, the presets are shown in its place instead — see On an empty library tab.
3. The dialog Import from the default list opens on the tab you were on. Tick what you want, on either tab or both.
4. Choose Import 12. The button counts everything ticked across both tabs, reads Importing… while it works, and is greyed out while nothing is ticked.

The dialog closes, the library reloads with the new rows in it, and a line under the tabs says what happened: "Imported 12." It stays until you next open the dialog. If you came to the library from a season, the line goes on with a link back — see Coming from a season.

This imports into your library only. Nothing is attached to any festival or any season. To run an imported category or award in a season that already exists, attach it on that season's settings — see A season's categories and awards.

Cancel, or closing the dialog, imports nothing.

There is also a way here from a season's settings. When an owner's library has no categories at all, the Attach categories dialog offers an Import from default list link, and Attach awards does the same when the library has no awards. The link opens your library with this dialog already open. See A season's categories and awards.

Reading the dialog

• Two tabs, Categories and Awards, each showing how many rows you have ticked on it. Switching tabs keeps your ticks, and Import brings in everything ticked on both.
• Search by name, and a Type filter: Any, Film or Screenplay.
• The rows are grouped under Film and Screenplay. Each group heading carries Select all, which ticks every row in that group that you can currently see and that is not already in your library, and reads Clear once they are all ticked. It never ticks a row your search or filter is hiding.
• A category row shows the name, a Film or Screenplay pill, and a line with its length and its question count — max 30 min · 12 questions, min 61 pages · 9 questions.
• An award row shows the name, a pill for the kind of work it takes, and how much of your library it would reach: "Applies to 12 of your categories", or "None of your categories yet". The count is of your active categories.
• Details, at the end of each row, opens the full description underneath; press it again to close it.

A search or filter that matches nothing reads "Nothing in the default list matches."

Items already in your library

Items you already hold are left out of the list. The picker only shows what you can still import. If every default category (or award) is already in your library, the tab reads "Every default category is already in your library."

The one exception is an item you hold archived. It stays in the list, greyed out, with Archived in your library under it. It cannot be imported, and the picker does not restore it — restore it from the library's Archived view.

An item counts as already in your library when:

• you imported it before — even if you have renamed it since; or
• your library has a category or an award with exactly the same name, active or archived, whether you imported it or wrote it yourself.

If your organization was created before the default list became an import, your library already holds the default categories under their own names. The dialog's Categories tab then reads "Every default category is already in your library.", and any award you import links to them straight away.

If somebody else imports the same thing while your dialog is open, your import still goes ahead and skips it, and the line says so: "Imported 11. 1 was already in your library."

On an empty library tab

An owner whose Categories tab holds no categories at all sees the presets in its place, headed "Get started with some of our preset categories or add your own", with the line "Our presets come with scorecards already made, and you can adjust them however you want. You can import more presets anytime." The Awards tab does the same for awards — "Get started with some of our preset awards or add your own". This is the first thing a new organization's owner meets in the library.

• It is the dialog's list, one kind at a time — categories on the Categories tab, awards on the Awards tab — with the same search, Type filter and groups.
• Tick what you want, and a bar along the bottom counts them — "12 selected" — with Clear selection and Import 12.
• Add a custom category (or Add a custom award), top right, puts the ordinary tab back for the rest of your visit with its New form open, for writing your own from nothing.

When the import lands, the tab has rows, the presets give way to the ordinary list, and the line under the tabs reads "Imported 12." — with the link back to a season when you came from one; see Coming from a season.

Nobody but the owner sees the presets. Anyone else opening an empty library tab sees it empty.

Coming from a season

The library remembers the season that sent you there. When you reach it from a season — the Welcome page's or the dashboard's Set up categories button — the line after an import reads, for example:

Imported 12. Attach them to Riverside Shorts Festival Fall 2026 →

The link opens that season's Categories tab in Settings, where you attach what you have just imported. Importing put the categories in your library; attaching is the step that puts them on the season, so its submissions can be imported into them.

Reached any other way — the navigation, a bookmark — the line is "Imported 12." alone, with no link.

On the Welcome page

After you create a festival you land on its first season's Welcome page. The Welcome page imports nothing itself. While the season has no categories, its second button reads Set up categories, and it goes:

• to your library, when the library holds no categories yet — where an owner finds the presets on the empty Categories tab, and the line after the import links back to this season; or
• to the season's Categories tab in Settings, when your library already has categories to attach.

The Welcome page's own sentence says the same thing: "Add categories to this season first, because submissions import into them." Once the season has categories, the button reads Import submissions instead.

The Welcome page is shown once, straight after creation, and nothing links back to it. The dashboard's Import submissions row offers the same Set up categories button for as long as the season has none — see Finishing setup.

What an import brings

A category

• Its name, description, type and length, exactly as on the default list.
• A fresh CAT- id — the next free number in your library.
• The DEFAULT tag, so every festival you create from now on starts with it. See What a new festival starts with.
• Its default judge pay — Default technical pay and Default creative pay both arrive at the default list's figure, $2.00 for a short category and $4.00 for any other (see What is on the default list). Change them in the library like any other category's — see Judge pay.
• Its creative slot: its own creative scorecard, copied with every question. If your library already has a scorecard of that name — any version, archived or not — the copy is named "<name> (default)", then "<name> (default 2)" and so on. Your own scorecard is never attached in its place.
• Its technical slot: your own Film Technical or Screenplay Technical, not a copy — the active technical scorecard with that name, newest version first. Renamed or archived it? Then the category takes your one active technical scorecard for that kind of work, if you have exactly one. Otherwise the slot stays empty.
• Its press kit slot: your own Press Kit, by the same rule.
• A place in every award you imported from the default list that names it — see Categories imported later fill in the awards.

An empty slot reads the way any empty slot does: the chip says Missing, the row is tinted amber, and the category counts towards the "categories missing scorecards" pill. Attach a scorecard to it as usual — see Attaching scorecards.

Categories you imported before the default list carried pay were given the same figures, as long as both of their rates were still at $0.00. A category whose pay you had set yourself, and one you wrote yourself, kept what it had, and no season's rates were touched — a season keeps the rates it copied when the category was attached.

An award

• Its name and its description, word for word. The longest description on the list runs to nearly 500 characters, which is why an award's description may now be up to 600.
• A fresh AWD- id and the DEFAULT tag.
• Its eligible categories: every category in your library that matches one the default award names — imported from that default category, or with the same name, by the rule in Items already in your library. Archived categories are linked too, and show again once you restore them.
• No price. An award's add-on price belongs to a season.

Import an award before its categories and it arrives with none. Its row in the dialog read "None of your categories yet", its own page shows the amber "nothing can enter this pool" line, and it is still a real award. The categories fill it in as you import them.

Categories imported later fill in the awards

When a category comes in from the default list, it is added to every award you imported from the default list whose default eligibility names it — so the order you import in makes no difference. Three limits:

• Only awards that came from the default list. An award you wrote yourself is never changed by an import, even one called "Best Director".
• Only categories being imported now. A category already in your library is never imported again, so one you took out of an imported award stays out.
• Only additions. An import never takes a category out of any award.

It is a copy

What you import is yours from then on. A later change to the default list never reaches your copy, and nothing you change in your library reaches the default list or any other organization.

From a FilmFreeway import

Step 3 of an import — matching the file's categories to yours — has a third group in its picker, FilmScorecard default list: the default categories your library does not hold yet, after On this season and Organization library. The picker's search covers it too.

• A file category matching a default category is filled in for you, the same way a name matching one of your own categories is. Your own categories always come first: the default list only answers a name that neither this season nor your library does.
• Picking one records a decision and writes nothing. When the import runs, the category is imported exactly as described above — creative scorecard, default judge pay and all — and attached to the season at that pay. Two names in the file mapped to one default category import it once.
• It stays in your library. If the import fails after it has started, or you roll the batch back later, the category comes off the season and stays in your library, with its scorecards and its award links.
• A category you create instead — "Create "<name>" as a new category" — gets your shared technical and press kit scorecards by the same rule, and no creative scorecard. It arrives with its creative slot Missing and cannot be judged until you attach one.

The whole step is in Importing submissions.

Before you have any categories

A new organization's screens are empty until something is imported or written, and each one says so in its own words:

The Welcome page reads 0 against Submission categories and 3 against Scorecards, and the dashboard's Import submissions row asks you to set up categories first while its Review categories row reads "No categories set for this season." in amber — see Finishing setup.

Messages

Related guides

• Categories and scorecards — the library the categories land in, and attaching a scorecard to an empty slot.
• Award categories — the awards, their eligible categories and their descriptions.
• What a new festival starts with — the DEFAULT tag every import carries.
• Setting up your festival and Finishing setup — creating a festival, the Welcome page, and getting categories onto its first season.
• A season's categories and awards — attaching what you imported to a season.
• Judge pay — the default pay an imported category carries, and how a season copies it.
• Importing submissions — the FilmFreeway import's category step.