Opening a submission

Clicking a submission's title on the Submissions screen — or View submission in its row menu — slides a detail panel in from the right, over the list. It opens over the list rather than taking you to a new page on purpose: working down a long list, you should not lose your place to read one synopsis.

The panel has six tabs — Display, Information, Scoring, Awards, Settings and Audit. The Information tab is the editable record; the Settings and Awards tabs act on the submission.

This is where a submission's categories un-fold. The list has one line per row and compresses them to a pill and a +2; the panel has room, so it names every one of them in the header, gives each its own scoring section, and lists each one's scorecards separately.

The same panel opens from an award pool, where it is read-only and its Settings tab holds only the two address cards — see Opened from an award pool.

Opening, closing and resizing

The panel opens on the click. The frame, its width, the submission's title and its tracking number are on screen in the same moment you press. The record itself — the type, the length, the category pills, the status pill, the score and everything on the six tabs — arrives just behind them, and until it does the body shows placeholder bars. Your own flag shows beside the title if you had set it, as a marker rather than a button: it becomes pressable when the record lands.

Reopening a submission you have already looked at is instant. Its record is still in your browser from the first time, so there is nothing at all to wait for — and if it has been sitting there a while it is quietly re-read behind what you are already reading.

• To close it: press Escape, click anywhere on the darkened list behind it, or use Close in the footer or the ✕ in the header.
• Closing costs nothing. The list behind it does not reload, does not lose your place in it and does not forget which rows you had ticked.
• The address includes the submission, so a refresh keeps the panel open and the link opens straight to it. The browser's Back button does not close the panel — use one of the ways above.
• It keeps up while it stands open. The score, the status and the flag in the header come from the list, which re-reads itself in the background; the record behind the tabs is re-read on the same rhythm — about once a minute while the tab is in front of you, and whenever you come back to it. A scorecard a colleague approves while you are reading appears on the Scoring tab without your closing anything. See The list keeps itself up to date.
• To resize it: drag the left edge. You can also give the edge keyboard focus and use the left and right arrow keys, which move it in steps. Your width is remembered in this browser, for every submission you open after it.
• On a narrow window (below roughly 700px) the panel fills the screen and the drag edge is gone.

Opening a different submission starts the panel fresh: it returns to the Display tab and any unsaved edits are discarded.

When the record cannot be shown

Two things can leave the panel standing with nothing on its tabs, and they say different things.

"This submission is no longer on the list." Somebody withdrew the submission, or moved it to another season — or the FilmFreeway sync withdrew it — while you had the list open, so there is no record left to read here. The list behind the panel re-reads itself as it happens, and the row leaves with it. Close the panel; there is nothing to retry. See Withdrawing a submission and Moving a submission to another festival.

"This submission could not be loaded.", with a Try again button under it. The record simply could not be fetched — a connection that dropped, or a moment the server could not answer. Nothing is wrong with the submission itself: press Try again and it loads.

In both cases the panel keeps the title, the tracking number, the ✕ and its Close button, and it closes every way it usually does. What is missing is the six tabs, because there is nothing yet to draw on them.

The header

Under the title sit the facts you need to be sure you have the right submission: the tracking number, Film or Screenplay, the length, a pill for every category the submission competes in, the status pill and the score.

There is no +N here — all the pills are shown, wrapping onto a second line if they need to. A submission attached to nothing reads No category in plain text instead.

The two buttons on the right are the flag — the same private flag as the row, described under Flags are private — and close. Priority and the judging hold are not in the header: their switches are on the Settings tab, and their marks are on the list — the Priority chevrons before the title, and On hold in the Judging column.

The score beside the pills is the same one the list row shows: the points banked by whichever category has banked the most, out of 100, not a total across them — or "No scores" until an approved scorecard counts toward one of its categories. See Which category's score a row shows.

The Scoring tab carries a monospace "2 of 5" beside its name once the season has a judging panel size — approved creative scorecards against the judges expected. A season with no panel set shows no count there. It can read past the panel — "4 of 3" — when more scorecards have been filed than the panel plans for, which the panel size does not prevent; see Filling out a scorecard yourself.

The Display tab

The read-out: what this submission is, for someone about to watch or read it.

At the top, the screener block — under any FilmFreeway notices, which come first of all. A Vimeo, YouTube or Google Drive link plays in place, in a frame. Every other host gets a block naming where the work lives — "This film plays on FilmFreeway", or "This screenplay is on Dropbox" — with a Watch on FilmFreeway (or Read on Dropbox) button that opens the recorded link in a new tab. The platform is read from the link itself, so a FilmFreeway screener is never announced as a Vimeo one; a host FilmScorecard does not recognise reads "the filmmaker's link" instead of guessing.

When no link has been recorded, the button is replaced by a greyed-out No screener link yet (or No PDF link yet) that does nothing. Add a link on the Information tab.

A screenplay your team has uploaded as a PDF shows one row instead — Screenplay · PDF — with an Open PDF ↗ button that opens the file in a new tab. There is no link and no password to show beside it, because a screenplay holds one or the other, never both. See A screenplay as a PDF.

Below it, the password, when the submission has one: the password in monospace with a Copy button that flips to Copied, and a line beside it saying where a judge will need it. If your browser blocks the copy, you get "Your browser would not let this page copy the password." and the button does not flip — because it did not copy. When the film is playing in the frame, an Open on Vimeo ↗ link sits on the same row: the frame cannot tell you that a private video refused to play, so the way out is always kept.

On a film the FilmFreeway sync keeps up to date, a missing password gets a quiet grey line in its place: "FilmFreeway doesn't share screener passwords. Add one if this link needs it." FilmFreeway never sends a screener password, so a film whose link lives somewhere else — a private Vimeo link, say — arrives without one. The line is drawn only when the film has a link, no password, no uploaded PDF, and a link that is not a FilmFreeway page (which needs no password of its own). It is a reminder and nothing more: it is not a notice, nobody is emailed about it, and it goes as soon as a password is saved on the Information tab. The sync never changes or clears a password you add.

Then the submission itself: the title, a line of context (project type and genres, the runtime or page count, and every category, spelled out and separated by commas), the tagline in italics, and the synopsis.

Then the statement, under a small heading that says what the work is — Director's statement on a film, Writer's statement on a screenplay. A submission has one statement and nothing is signed under it; with no statement on the record, no heading is drawn at all. See The tagline, the statement and the poster.

Underneath, a grid of credits — Directors, Writers, Producers, Key cast, Language, Country of origin, Completed and Budget.

Empty fields are left out, not drawn blank. An imported record is mostly gaps, and eight labels with nothing under six of them reads as a broken screen. If a field is missing here, it is missing from the record — open the Information tab to fill it in.

The poster is not on this tab. It is on the Information tab, and in the judge's own view of the film.

This tab is a summary, not the whole record. Everything FilmScorecard stores is on the Information tab.

FilmFreeway notices

On a festival connected to FilmFreeway, the sync keeps each film it brought in — or found already here from a CSV import — up to date with FilmFreeway.

A filmmaker's withdrawal is applied here. On FilmFreeway only the filmmaker can withdraw a submission, so when the sync sees a film withdrawn there it withdraws the film here too — the same change Withdraw from season makes — as long as no judge has started a creative scorecard on it and its scorecard has not been unlocked (bought, comped or free). The film leaves the list, and its Audit tab says FilmFreeway withdrew the submission, with the time. Nobody is emailed about it.

Everything else is left to you. The sync never disqualifies a film, never takes a category away, and does not withdraw a film a judge has started or a filmmaker has unlocked. When FilmFreeway does one of those things, the film gets an amber notice at the very top of this tab instead, one per thing, oldest first, and you decide:

• Nothing on a film with a notice changes by itself. Its status, its categories, its scorecards and anything its filmmaker has bought stay exactly as they are until somebody acts.
• The sync withdraws a film once, and never again. A film it withdrew that is ever back in the season is not withdrawn a second time: while FilmFreeway still reports it withdrawn, it carries the notice instead, and Dismiss settles it.
• Disqualified on FilmFreeway is the festival's own decision there, so the sync only ever raises the notice for it. FilmFreeway's Not Selected is not read at all.
• Dismiss, on the notice, puts it away for everybody. It is there for the people who can open the season's Settings screen — owners, org admins and festival admins, or anybody given Edit festival settings and team — while FilmFreeway sync is on for your organization. Everybody else reads the notice with no button, and so does everybody on a record opened from an award pool or the Review Queue. The notice stays until the dismissal is saved; if a colleague got there first you are told "That item has already been dealt with.", and it goes.
• A dismissed notice does not come back while FilmFreeway leaves that thing as it is. It is raised again only when FilmFreeway changes it again — the film reinstated there and then withdrawn a second time, say.
• A notice also goes by itself once its cause has gone: at the next sync after you withdraw the film or take the category off here, or after FilmFreeway reinstates the film, gives the category back or starts returning the film again.
• The list finds them for you. The Changed on FilmFreeway chip on the Submissions toolbar narrows the list to every film with a notice — see Searching and filtering.
• Neither a notice nor its dismissal is on the Audit tab.

The Information tab

The editable record. From the top:

Categories is a read-only list of the categories this submission competes in, one per line, alphabetically. A submission attached to nothing reads "No category. This submission is not being judged against anything yet." What each category is scored against — its scorecards, their sizes and the split — is the Scoring tab's business, not this card's. The scorecards themselves are decided by the category and edited in your organization's library, see Categories and scorecards; the split is a season setting, see Festival settings.

Edit categories, the button under that list, is what you can change from here: which categories this submission competes in, and therefore which scorecards it is judged against. It opens the same dialog as the row menu on the list — see Editing a submission's categories. The list is drawn in the read-only panel an award pool opens; the button is not.

Then the record itself: nine cards in one form, saved together by Save changes, and the Poster card under them, which saves on its own. Every card's heading carries a count of how many of its fields hold something — 3/9 — and the heading is a button that opens and closes the card. Five cards start open and four start closed, because most of what is in the closed ones is rarely touched:

A closed card still saves. Its fields are part of the form whether you can see them or not, so Save changes writes what is in them. And if one of them holds something the form will not accept, pressing Save opens that card and puts your cursor in the first field that needs fixing.

Screener access — both fields editable, both saved by the footer's Save changes along with the rest of the form. A small badge under the link names the host it recognises, or reads Unrecognized host. Correcting a link corrects the current cut; it does not create a new version of the submission. If the submission has no file version on record, both fields are disabled and the card says so: "There is no version on file for this submission yet, so there is nothing to link to." On a screenplay the link field also takes a PDF, through an upload button beside it — see A screenplay as a PDF.

Project — the box under Synopsis is the statement, headed Director's statement on a film and Writer's statement on a screenplay. The tagline, synopsis and statement all save with the rest of the form. See The tagline, the statement and the poster.

Credits — one name per line, or comma separated; it is stored as you type it.

Links — a film always has its Trailer URL field. A screenplay has it only when it counts: when a press kit on one of the screenplay's categories scores the trailer, or when a trailer is already saved on it, so a saved one can still be read and cleared. Otherwise the card holds the other four fields, and its count is out of four.

Entry record — the Tracking number is issued by the source platform and is this entry's identity, and the Submission date is when the entry was made, in the season's time zone; neither can be changed here. The fee and the discount amount are a record of what happened on the submission platform: they are in US dollars, and nothing in FilmScorecard adds them into any figure.

The fields the FilmFreeway import added are for your staff only. Birthdate, Gender, Pronouns, Address, Address 2, Postal code and Country; the original-language title and synopsis and the lyrics; the six camera fields; Twitter and Facebook; the four Background fields; and everything on the Entry record card below the tracking number and the date — none of them is ever shown to a judge, on the filmmaker's own submission page or scorecard, on the public film page, or to a connected AI app. The import fills them from a FilmFreeway export; see What a FilmFreeway export brings in.

Poster, below the form, is covered on its own page: The tagline, the statement and the poster. It saves by itself, immediately — it does not wait for Save changes, and Save changes does not save it. The whole card is a drop target: drag an image file from your desktop over it and the card turns indigo; let go and the file uploads, exactly as if you had chosen it with the button. The card takes nothing, and its button reads "Uploading…", while an upload is running — one started here, or one started by dropping a file on this submission's row on the list behind the panel. What is done to the image before it is sent, and what is refused, is on that page; the faster route for a whole season is Adding posters from the list.

The submission's addresses are not on this tab. The Submission link — the filmmaker's own edit page — sits with the scorecard link on the Settings tab.

There is no Category field in the form. A submission competes in a set of categories rather than one, and the set is edited in its own dialog — Edit categories, under the Categories card at the head of this tab and in the row menu on the list. See Editing a submission's categories.

A note above the cards names what the record is missing — "This submission is missing a tagline, a poster and a statement." — when anything is short. It is advice and nothing more: nothing on this tab, or anywhere else, is refused for being incomplete. See An incomplete record.

And a second grey line under it says when the submitter last edited the record themselves — "Edited by the submitter on 10 Sep 2026." — once a filmmaker has saved their own submission page. It is drawn in the season's time zone, and it is not a prompt: their edits are already live and nothing asks you to approve them. The line itself does not say which fields moved; See what changed, beside it, switches the panel to the Audit tab, where their edits are listed field by field, with what each field was and what it is now. Most of the fields on this tab are theirs to correct while judging is under way — see Letting submitters fix their own details.

This tab is also where a press kit is filled in. Most press kit items watch one of the fields on this tab and are satisfied the moment it has something in it — so adding the tagline here is what marks the press kit's Tagline item, and there is no separate box to tick anywhere. Nothing on this tab says which fields a press kit is watching; the Scoring tab is where you read that. See Press kit items. Once judging has closed, a season that freezes its press kit stops counting these edits — see Freezing the press kit when judging closes.

It is not where a film's public page comes from. A film's public page belongs to its filmmaker and shows their own project, never this record; what reaches it from your festival is only the results you announce. See If you run a festival.

A few fields behave in ways worth knowing:

• Project title and Email are required. Everything else may be left empty.
• First name and Last name together become the name shown in the list. Clearing both leaves the existing name alone — a blank pair is not an instruction to forget who submitted this.
• Student project and First time filmmaker have three answers, not two: Not stated, Yes and No. "Not stated" means nobody was ever asked, which is a different fact from "No". A press kit item watching one of them counts Yes and No equally, and only Not stated leaves it empty.
• Runtime and Pages describe the current cut. Clearing the field means "nobody has measured this", not zero — and the Length column on the list goes empty to match. If the submission has no file version on record at all, there is nothing for a length to attach to and that one field is not saved.
• Birthdate is written year-month-day — 1990-05-21 — and has to be a real date.

Saving

Saving the record is explicit. There is no autosave. Your edits to the form cards stay in the panel until you press Save changes in the footer, and closing the panel throws them away without asking. If you have typed anything you want, save before you close.

The one exception is the poster, which writes as soon as you choose a file, drop one on its card, or press Remove. It is not part of the form and closing the panel does not undo it. A screenplay's PDF behaves the same way — see A screenplay as a PDF.

After a successful save the footer reads "Saved just now by your name". That line lasts only until the panel is closed. It is a note about this session — reopening the submission shows no saved-at line at all. The save itself is kept, on the Audit tab: your name, the time, and every field you changed with what it held before. A submitter's own save is kept there too, and announced by the grey line above the form.

If something you typed cannot be saved, the message appears under the field it belongs to and as a red summary at the top of the tab, because the panel scrolls and an inline message twelve fields down is a message nobody sees.

A length message can also appear under a long field. The synopsis, the statement, the five credit fields, the original-language synopsis, the lyrics and the four Background fields hold up to 20,000 characters each; every other text field holds up to 4,000. Pasting more is refused rather than trimmed, and nothing else on the form is saved when it is.

The two category messages — "A submission has to compete in at least one category." and "That category is no longer in this season. Refresh the page and try again." — belong to the Edit categories dialog and cannot appear on this tab.

The money fields are relaxed about presentation and strict about value. 18000, $18,000, 18,000.00 and 18000 USD all mean the same thing. A third decimal place, a negative or stray letters are refused rather than quietly trimmed, because a figure that silently loses a digit is worse than one that will not save. A budget reads back as $18,000.00 USD.

If two people edit the same record at once, the last save wins. There is no warning and no merge — though both saves are on the Audit tab afterwards, each under its own name, so you can see what the other person's save overwrote.

A submitter saving their own page is gentler than that. Their page sends only the fields they actually changed, so your edit to a field they did not touch survives their save and yours survives theirs. Where you both changed the same field, the last save still wins.

One field of theirs is stricter than yours: the tagline. Yours holds 4,000 characters and theirs holds 120, and a stored tagline over 120 blocks their whole save until it is shortened — see The tagline.

A screenplay as a PDF

A screenplay can be judged from a PDF your team uploads, instead of from a link to wherever the writer keeps it. Judges then press Open PDF on their scoring screen to read it — see Scoring a film — and so does anybody filling in a scorecard from your own team.

On a screenplay, the Screener access card's PDF link field has a small upload button beside it:

• With no PDF stored, type the link into the field as usual and save it with Save changes — or upload a PDF instead.
• With a PDF stored, the field is replaced by Open PDF ↗, and the button beside it replaces the file.

To upload one:

1. Press the upload button beside PDF link and pick the file — or drag a PDF from your computer and drop it on the field, which lights up as you hold it there. The button fades while the file goes.
2. That is all. The file saves by itself, straight away — like the poster, it does not wait for Save changes, and closing the record does not undo it.

What the file may be: one PDF, up to 25 MB. Anything else is refused before it leaves your computer, in red under the field:

A screenplay holds a link or a PDF, never both, so a judge is never shown two copies:

• Uploading a PDF clears the link and the password. The fields go empty, and a later Save changes cannot put the old link back.
• Saving a new link clears the PDF. Press Use a link instead under Open PDF ↗, type the new address, and press Save changes: the stored file is no longer the screenplay's copy, and judges are given the link instead. A password cannot be saved on its own while a PDF is stored. Changed your mind before saving? Keep the PDF, where Use a link instead was, puts the field back to Open PDF ↗ and drops what you typed, so the next Save changes cannot replace the PDF by accident.

Five more things:

• Open PDF opens a fresh copy every time you press it. Each press is good for ten minutes, so copying the address out of the new tab and sending it to somebody does not share the file for long. The file itself is private: only your festival's staff and the judges who hold or have filed a scorecard on the submission can open it.
• Only your team uploads — or the FilmFreeway sync. The filmmaker cannot, from their own page or anywhere else, and never sees the file. On a festival connected to FilmFreeway, a screenplay whose FilmFreeway submission carries a script PDF gets that file stored here, just as if you had uploaded it — but only while the screenplay has no PDF and its link is empty or a FilmFreeway page. A link to anywhere else is never replaced.
• Films have no PDF. The upload button is offered only on a submission stored as a screenplay — change Type to Screenplay and save first. A film that somehow holds one still shows Use a link instead, so the way back to a link is always there.
• A replaced or cleared file is deleted a day later. Nothing keeps old versions.
• Nothing about it is on the Audit tab — like the link and the password, the file is part of the screener, which the tab does not record.

The quick way through many screenplays is the Screener link column in Edit mode on the Submissions list, which takes a PDF on a screenplay row — see Edit mode.

When a filmmaker saves a submission to their account

A filmmaker can save their submission to their own FilmScorecard account. It happens by itself when the address on your record is the one they log in with, once they have their first project. The access code in your email does it too: Save to your account on their submission page or scorecard, or Add an entry on their own project's Festivals tab, whatever address they log in with; or Keep it on the scorecard, which logs them in on the address on your record. It gives them their own copy of the film, in a workspace of their own. Their side of it is Saving a submission to your account.

Nothing changes for you. The record stays yours to edit, exactly as before:

• every field on the Information tab, saved with Save changes — the statement box with the rest;
• the poster — uploading, replacing and removing it on the Poster card, or dropping a file on the row on the list;
• its status, its categories, your flag, Priority, whether it is On hold, its award pools, filling in a scorecard for it, moving it to another season and withdrawing it.

Only the Audit tab says it has happened. There is no mark on the list and no line on the rest of the panel, because saving a submission to an account changes nothing on the record. The Audit tab lists "Alex Rivera claimed the submission", with the address their account had at the time — "Signed in as …" — for any save since it began recording them; one from before that shows nothing.

Their own copy never reaches your record. What a filmmaker keeps in their account is separate, and editing it changes nothing here. Two things of theirs do reach your record:

• a save on their submission page, as it always has;
• a send from their own copy of one field your press kit is waiting for — the tagline, synopsis, trailer link, poster, or one of the four credit lines — which they can do only while their submission page is open.

Both arrive as the submitter's own edits. The "Edited by the submitter" line moves, and the Audit tab lists the change under the submitter's name, with Submitter under it.

Their own copy can have a public page. A filmmaker can make a public web page for the film from their account. It shows their copy, never your record, and carries your festival's result only once your season's Selections announced or Awards announced date arrives. You have no control over it. See If you run a festival.

Their two pages open for them without a code once the submission is saved to their account and they are signed in. Your own way in, as staff, is unchanged — see Seeing what a submitter sees.

If the filmmaker also judges for you, the film leaves their judging queue once it is saved to their account — see The judge is the submitter.

Opened from an award pool

Clicking an entrant's title on an award pool opens this same panel in read mode:

• Six tabs, as on the working list — but the Settings tab holds only the submission's two addresses: Submission link and Scorecard link, each with its Copy link button. No Edit categories, no Priority, no Judging, no scorecard access, no move and no withdraw.
• Every field on the Information tab is greyed out, there is no Save changes button, and there is no flag button in the header.
• The Awards tab only reads. It lists the pools the film is in, with no Add to an award or Remove — see The Awards tab.
• The Audit tab reads exactly as it does here. The history is a read, and a pool is allowed to read. The one thing missing is the See what changed button on the Information tab's "Edited by the submitter" line — the tab is a click away in the strip.
• The Scorecard link card shows where the release stands and never the Release scorecard button — see Releasing one submission's scorecard.
• The Submission link card is there, with its Copy link button, exactly as on the working list: it is an address rather than an action.
• It opens the same way — the frame on the click, the record just behind it, and an entrant you have already looked at this sitting reopens at once. The header carries the title alone, because a pool row has no tracking number and no flag.
• Closing, resizing and the address behave exactly as they do here.

A pool is a place to look a submission up while you decide an award, not the place to edit its record. To change anything, open the same submission from Submissions.

A withdrawn entrant cannot be opened from a pool at all — its row stays, but its title is plain text and its menu has no View submission, because the record is no longer on the season's working list.

The Scoring tab

One section per category, alphabetically. A submission in Drama Film and Experimental Film gets two sections, each headed with the category's name, each describing the judging in that category only.

Every category a submission can be scored in is scored out of 100, so the two sections are comparable — but they are never added together. Two categories can share one technical review between them, and a combined figure would count it twice, so there is no total across categories anywhere on this tab.

Each section holds, in this order:

1. The score, a large banded figure — the points this category has banked so far, out of 100 — or "No scores" until an approved scorecard counts toward this category, and for good on a category whose every section is weighted zero. It grows as the outstanding scorecards are approved; see What the figure counts.
2. "2 of 5 judges in" with a row of ticks. A season with no Judges per category set reads "No judging panel is set for this season yet." instead. A category with no creative scorecard has neither — it has no panel to count.
3. One sentence saying exactly where this category stands — see The sentence under the score.
4. The split this category is scored on — see What the 100 is divided into.
5. Creative, one per judge — a line counting the judges who have filed, and one card per filed creative scorecard. A category with no creative scorecard has no such group.

Under the category sections sit the cards for the reviews that are filed once for the whole submission — Technical, drawn once a technical review has been filed, and Press kit, which lists that press kit item by item. The submission's two addresses — Submission link and Scorecard link — are not on this tab; they are on the Settings tab.

The "N of M" and its ticks tell the truth past the panel. A fourth creative scorecard on a panel of three reads "4 of 3", with four ticks, all filled — Judges per category decides how many judges are offered each category, not how many scorecards it may carry. A colleague's own scorecard can be filed on top of a full panel.

What fills these sections' figures is approval, not filing. Judges file scorecards in their own workspace, and each one waits in the Review Queue until someone approves it. A filed scorecard still under review is listed with Pending approval after its filing date, but it is in none of the figures — not the score, the count, the ticks or the sentence — however finished it is. A scorecard a colleague filled in from the list is approved as it is filed, so it counts here at once — see Filling out a scorecard yourself.

The press kit is the one exception, and it has its own card below: its items answer for themselves whether or not anybody has filed anything, so the Press kit card is drawn as soon as the submission's categories reach a press kit scorecard at all. What those items are worth only joins a category's score once an approved scorecard counts toward that category — see What the figure counts.

A submission attached to no category reads: "This submission is not attached to a category yet, so there is nothing to score it against." — and no scorecard cards are drawn, because there is nothing they could hold.

A category the submission no longer competes in has no section here, and the creative scorecards filed under it are not listed either — they belong to no category of this film now. They are still filed, and still approvable and payable, in the Review Queue, where they read "Category (removed)".

What the figure counts

The score is what the approved work has banked, not a forecast of where the film will finish. The technical and press-kit reviews put their whole share in the moment they are approved; the Creative share is divided equally among the judges the season expects per category, and each approved creative scorecard banks one of those shares. Cards nobody has filed hold points nobody has banked, so they are outside the number and named in the sentence underneath it instead.

On a season split 50 Creative / 30 Technical / 20 Press kit, a film with one of three judges in who marked it 80 out of 100 reads 13 — a third of the 50 — and reaches 40 when the other two judges file at the same standard.

The first approved scorecard starts the score, whichever kind it is. A film whose technical review is approved before any judge has filed reads the technical points it banked — 24, say, on that season, for a checklist passed at 80% — and the judges' shares are added as they are approved. Until something that counts has been approved, the category reads No scores.

Four riders, all of which you can see on the tab itself:

• More scorecards than the panel plans for divide the share further. Four cards on a panel of three bank a quarter each, so the section never exceeds what it is worth.
• A season with no Judges per category set treats whatever has been filed as the whole panel, so one card banks the whole Creative share and the sentence names no missing judges.
• The press kit's share can move without anybody filing anything — once the category has a score. From the moment an approved scorecard counts toward the category, and once the press kit is settled, every item that watches a submission field is counted live — so filling in a tagline, uploading a poster or writing the statement raises this figure the next time the panel is opened. The submitter can raise it too, from their own page, without telling anybody. See The press kit card. Until judging closes, that is: after it, a season that freezes its press kit — every season, unless somebody turned it off — leaves this figure where it stood. See Freezing the press kit when judging closes.
• Field items alone never make a score. A film nobody has scored reads No scores however complete its record is: its satisfied items wait for the first approved scorecard in the category.

The colour is not the number. A section's colour is that scorecard read against its own maximum, and the big score's colour is what has been banked against what could have been banked so far — so a strong film with one judge of three shows a small number in green rather than a red one. The full rule is on The number and the colour answer different questions.

The sentence under the score

One sentence, and it is the fastest read on the tab. Seven wordings, in the order the screen tries them:

The part-way sentence is built to a rule, and it is worth knowing because its shape moves:

• Everything outstanding is named, in one list, in this order: the missing judges, then technical, then the press kit. Commas between them and "and" before the last — "2 more judges, technical and press kit outstanding".
• The missing judges are counted, and the count is singular when it is one: "1 more judge outstanding".
• A semicolon follows the opening figures only when the judges are in the list; otherwise it is a comma, exactly as it has always been. So "60 of 80 points filed so far, technical outstanding and worth 20 more points." on a film every judge has scored, and "30 of 30 points filed so far; 3 more judges and press kit outstanding and worth 70 more points." on one nobody has.
• "and worth N more points" appears only when there are points still to come. A section the festival weighted zero is still named — it still has to be filed — so the sentence can read "80 of 100 points filed so far, technical outstanding." with no worth clause at all.
• With nothing outstanding to name, the sentence stops after the figures — "90 of 100 points filed so far." That is what a season with no Judges per category set reads once its one card and both reviews are in.
• A section the category does not use is never named. A category with no creative scorecard never lists missing judges, and one with no technical review never lists technical.

"Press kit outstanding" now means one specific thing: a coordinator has not filed its card yet. Two things follow:

• A press kit with nothing for a coordinator to mark is never outstanding. It settles the moment the submission exists, so it is never in this list and never holds the category short of complete — however empty the record is. Its empty items are simply worth nothing yet, and its satisfied ones join the score once another approved scorecard has given the category one.
• A press kit that has been filed is never outstanding again, even though its field items are still moving. Filing is a statement about the coordinator's half, not about the record.

Two things about that count: it counts cards, not sections — three judges plus a technical review is "4 scorecards" — and an outstanding section is named even when it is worth no points, because it still holds the category short of complete.

What the 100 is divided into

Under the sentence sits the split this category is scored on:

Scores out of 100 — Creative 75, Technical 25, no press kit

Those numbers come from the season's section weights, set on Settings → Judging and starting at 60 Creative / 20 Technical / 20 Press kit. They are shares, not fixed points: a category that carries no press-kit scorecard is scored over the sections it does use, so 60/20/20 reads Creative 75 and Technical 25 here and still tops out at 100.

Read the line carefully, because it says two different things:

• "no press kit" — this category is not judged on one at all. A scorecard that cannot award a point counts as absent here too, which includes a press kit scorecard whose items are all worth zero.
• "Press kit 0" — it is judged on one, and the festival weighted it zero. The card is still filled in, the filmmaker still reads it, and the category is still not complete without it. It simply adds nothing to the score.

Two categories with nothing to score have their own sentences in place of the split:

• "Every section this category is scored on is weighted zero, so it awards no points."
• "No scorecards are attached to this category yet, so there are no points to award."

Creative, one per judge

Inside each category section, under a line that counts the panel:

3 of 5 judges have filed. Each judge's card banks an equal share of the creative section's 75 points.

— or "No judge has filed a creative scorecard yet." That figure at the end is this category's Creative share of the 100, and it is what the panel divides: on a panel of five, each judge's card is worth up to a fifth of it, and the shares of the judges who have not filed are simply not on the board yet. The whole sentence after the count is left off when the share is zero. A category with no creative scorecard has no such group at all.

That count is of approved scorecards only. Under it, one card per filed creative scorecard, collapsed:

• The filer's name, and "Filed Aug 4" beneath it — followed by · Pending approval on a card not yet approved. A scorecard your own staff filled in is named "Fay Festival (staff)" — the marker is how you tell a colleague's filing from a judge's.
• That card's own figure, banded — 56 of 60. This is the raw score on that scorecard's own scale, not its share of the 100. A card is always read against the card it was filled in on.
• Press the card to open it: one row per question with the same raw reading — 8 of 10 — any note the reviewer left under the line it belongs to, and, on a creative card, the two written boxes — What worked and Opportunities — or "This judge left no written feedback." A card whose questions cannot be listed says so instead: "This card's questions are not available to show."
• Edit, beside the card, opens the review queue's editor over this panel for anyone who can approve scorecards. You keep your place in the list. See Reading and editing a scorecard.

The Technical card

Technical and the press kit are reviewed once for the whole submission, not once per judge, so their cards sit under the category sections rather than inside one. Two categories using the same technical scorecard share that one review between them; two categories using different ones are each reviewed on their own.

The card headed Technical is drawn only once a technical review has been filed; until then there is no card, and the sentence under the score names technical as outstanding. It starts collapsed, showing the scorecard's name and version — Technical v2 — then the filer and the filing date, with · Pending approval until it is approved, and the card's own figure, banded and raw. Press the head to open it: one row per question, the same as a creative card, with no written feedback boxes. Edit sits on the head for anyone who can approve scorecards.

While it reads Pending approval, judges are not offered this submission's creative scorecard in the categories using that review, on a season where creative judging waits for technical approval — the default. Approving it in the Review Queue opens the submission to them.

Each category applies its own weight to that one review. A technical review of 15 of 20 is 75% of the Technical share wherever it counts — which is 25 points in a category with no press kit and 20 in one that has one. Being reviewed once is also why these two are not divided among the judges: the whole share lands with the one approved card — and on a film no judge has reached yet, that share is the whole of the score.

One thing to expect as judging runs. A judge reviews a submission once, under one of its categories. Judges go on being offered a submission until each of its categories has its full panel, and each judge is given the category that is furthest behind — so both sections do fill, as long as some of your judges may score each category, but not always at the same pace. This tab is where you see that: one section fuller than the other, or one still empty. The list's score columns show whichever category has banked the most, so this tab is the only place that gap shows — see Which category's score a row shows. This tab is also the honest way to check what a panel has already done before you fill a scorecard in yourself — the chooser dialog does not say.

To change what a category is judged on, attach different scorecards to it — see Categories and scorecards. To change how the 100 is divided, use the section weights on Settings → Judging. To change which categories apply, use Edit categories at the head of the Information tab.

The press kit card

The card headed Press kit is the one place on FilmScorecard that shows a press kit item by item with what each field actually holds.

It starts collapsed, showing three things: the words Press kit, a line reading "4 of 6 on file" — how much of the card is accounted for, counting both halves — and the press kit's figure, banded: what it has banked out of its share of the 100 in the category the list row shows — 14/20. Until an approved scorecard counts toward that category, the figure reads a dash against the share, however many items are on file: field items alone bank nothing. A press kit weighted zero shows its own raw total instead. Press the head to open it.

Opened, it reads:

Field items are satisfied by the submission itself and keep moving as the record is filled. Manual items are marked by a coordinator.

Then one line per item, with its own figure — 2 of 2 — and a second line underneath saying where that item stands:

Two fields describe themselves instead of showing their value: Screener password reads "On file", and Poster reads "1 file". A password is not printed on a read-out, and a poster is a picture rather than a line of text.

Three things this card is good for:

• Seeing what a submission is still missing, in the festival's own terms. Every "Empty, nothing submitted yet" line is a field somebody could fill in on the Information tab, and doing so moves this card at once — and the category's score with it, once the category has one — with nothing to file and nobody to ask. Once judging has closed, a season that freezes its press kit keeps this card and the score as they stood, and the change shows only on the Information tab — see Freezing the press kit when judging closes. Many of them are fields the submitter can fill in too — the same checklist, minus the manual half, is what their own page shows them; see The press kit is what this is for.
• Knowing whether the coordinator's half is done. Not yet marked on any line means the press kit card has not been filed, and the sentence under the category's score will be naming the press kit as outstanding.
• Reading a press kit that never had a card at all. When every item on the scorecard watches a field, this card is the whole record of it, and there is nothing in the Review Queue to open.

The card is drawn whenever the submission's categories reach a press kit scorecard that has items, whether or not anything has been filed. A category with no press kit slot, or a press kit scorecard with no items at all, draws no card rather than an empty one.

Edit sits on its head once a coordinator has filed the press kit's card, for anyone who can approve scorecards — and only on a press kit with items for a coordinator to mark, because a card of field items has nothing to edit.

The Settings tab

The submission's two addresses first — Submission link and Scorecard link, each with a small ⓘ beside its heading that says what the card's buttons do — then one card of actions, a row each, with what the action does on the left and its switch or button on the right: Judge this first and Hold from judges for somebody who can make changes to the season, Move to another festival for somebody who can open the season's Settings screen, and Withdraw from season. Whether the scorecard has been unlocked, and the button that comps it, sit inside the Scorecard link card for somebody allowed to see money. Nothing on this tab is a field, so it has no Save of its own: each control either copies an address, opens a dialog or acts outright. The two address cards are drawn in the read-only panel an award pool opens; the actions card is not.

There is no Public page card any more. A film's public web page now belongs to its filmmaker, who publishes it from their own account; you cannot publish one for a submission or take one down. See If you run a festival.

Submission link, the first card, is the address of the submitter's own edit page — where a filmmaker can correct their tagline, synopsis, statement, credits, links and poster while judging is under way: the address in monospace and a Copy link button that reads Copied once it has. It is always shown, in every state, because that address is never broken: before judging ends it opens the edit page, and afterwards it opens a page saying edits are closed. It works in a read-only drawer too — it is an address, not an edit. And copying it is not a send: passing it on is a perfectly good way to reach one filmmaker, since the page will email them a link and a code when they ask for one. The send is the Email button beside Copy link, for the people who can open the season's Settings: it asks first — "Email submission page links to 1 submission?", with the address it Sends to — and then emails this one filmmaker the same message the season's invitation sends. It goes even when the bulk send would skip the submission, and even when the submission is in no category, which the season's automatic send and Send to N now both wait on; see Who gets one. The same send for many submissions at once is Email submission links on the Submissions list's bulk bar. Paste it into your own browser and you are let straight in, with no code asked for, to a read-only copy of what that filmmaker sees — see Seeing what a submitter sees. The whole of it — what a submitter may change, what keeps their page open, and the line that records their edit — is Letting submitters fix their own details.

The scorecard link

Scorecard link is the submission's own scorecard address, with a Copy link button that reads Copied once it has. It is the page the results email opens, so you can hand it over by other means — a message, a call, a printed sheet. For the filmmaker the page behind it asks for the access code, which only ever goes to the address on the submission — the button in their own emails signs them straight in, but this plain address does not — and before the scorecard is released it shows a "Not available yet" page naming the film and nothing else.

Beside Copy link, an Email button, for your organization's owners and org admins, emails the filmmaker their scorecard link and access code: "Email the scorecard link?", with the address it Sends to, then Send link. "Scorecard link queued." confirms it. It is greyed out until the scorecard has been released. It sends the short "Your link for the film" message, not the results email, and it reuses the link and code the filmmaker already holds rather than replacing them — see Getting into your scorecard.

You are not asked for a code. Paste the address into your own browser and, signed in with access to this festival, you read the filmmaker's scorecard exactly as they read it — locked or unlocked as they left it, read-only, under a Viewing as staff pill, with no way to buy, comp or share it from there. A Staff view | Filmmaker view switch sits at the top of the page: Filmmaker view shows it as the filmmaker sees it, with the price, the checkout and Share. Nothing pressed there charges, creates a share link or sends feedback — each says "Preview only." instead — though Save image on Share still downloads the picture for you. It is the quickest way to check what you are about to send somebody. Who else can do it, and what those pages will not let you do, is Seeing what a submitter sees. Before the release you get the same "Not available yet" page they would — being staff does not open an unreleased scorecard.

Above the address, one line says where this submission's release stands — Not released, Not released · no approved scorecards yet, Released 2 Sep 2026 by Nadia Brandt · link emailed (or · no email sent), Released automatically on 2 Sep 2026 · link emailed on a season set to release As each submission is approved, or Released with the season on 17 Aug 2026 — and, on a submission that is ready but not yet released, a Release scorecard button beside it for somebody who can approve scorecards and change the season. That button opens this one submission's scorecard ahead of the season, with or without emailing the filmmaker their results, and it cannot be undone. The whole of it — the states, the dialog, who has the button and what the filmmaker then reads — is Releasing one submission's scorecard; the season's own release is Releasing scorecards.

Under the release line, for somebody with View revenue and payouts, a second line says whether the scorecard has been unlocked — Not unlocked, Unlocked · SC-40318 · 14 Aug 2026 or Refunded · SC-40318 — and, when there is something to comp — a released scorecard, with the season or on its own, on a priced season, with a category not yet unlocked — a Comp scorecard access button that gives the filmmaker their full scorecard at no charge. Without that permission the line is not drawn and its figures are never read, and the button additionally needs somebody who can change the season. The whole of it — what is sold, what you earn, who may comp and what a refund does — is Selling scorecard access.

A scorecard released before the panel has finished shows the filmmaker the same banked figure you are reading on the Scoring tab, and it rises as the rest of the cards are approved. The release dialog says as much, one line per category.

A released scorecard's press kit can move for a reason that has nothing to do with judging — somebody finishing the submission record. The filmmaker's scorecard lists the press kit item by item, each one either counted or "Not provided, so it did not count", and reads the record afresh on every visit: an item that was amber on one visit can be counted on the next, with the score risen to match. If that matters to you, finish the record before you release. Once judging has closed it stops moving, unless the season's Press kit after judging closes has been set to Keep counting edits — see Freezing the press kit when judging closes.

Judge this first

Judge this first, the first row of the actions card, is a switch. Turned on, it sends this film to the front of the queue of every judge who can take it; turned off, the film goes back to the ordinary order. It changes on the press, and the mark before the title on the list behind the panel changes with it. If the change is refused, the switch goes back and "Could not change priority." appears at the bottom of the screen.

The row is drawn for everybody who can make changes to the season — viewers do not see it. It is the only place Priority is set: there is no Priority item in the row menu and none on the bulk bar. What it does to the judges' queues, and why a judge never sees it, is on Priority: judge this first.

Hold from judges

Hold from judges, the row under it, is the film's judging hold, and the switch says it plainly: on means held.

• Turn it on and the film is On hold: no judge who is not already scoring it is offered it, from their next visit. The switch is amber, and the list's Judging column changes to On hold with it.
• Turn it off and the film is Ready again, offered to judges as before.

It changes on the press, exactly as Judge this first does: the switch cannot be pressed again while the change is saving, and if the change is refused the switch goes back and "Could not change the judging hold." appears at the bottom of the screen. The row is drawn for the same people — everybody who can make changes to the season, and not viewers.

What a hold does, and what it leaves alone — a judge already scoring the film keeps it, your own team can still fill in its scorecards, and the film is still on every list and count — is on Holding a submission out of judging. Many films at once are held from the list's bulk bar, and a whole import can arrive on hold — see Ready for judging or On hold.

Move and Withdraw

Move to another festival, the row above Withdraw, has one button — Move — and one line: the film keeps its number, screener and links, and the dialog lists anything that cannot move before you confirm. Everything else worth saying depends on where the film is going, and the dialog works that out when it opens. The row is drawn only for the organization's owners and org admins and for this festival's festival admins — the same people who can open the season's Settings screen. Coordinators, programmers and viewers do not see it. It is not in the row menu. The dialog, which seasons it offers, what a move deletes and keeps, and what the filmmaker and the judges see afterwards are all on Moving a submission to another festival. A move closes the panel, because the submission has left the list behind it.

Withdraw from season, the last row, in amber, with its Withdraw button. The same consequence line and the same dialog as the row menu — see Withdrawing a submission. Withdrawing closes the panel, because the submission is no longer on the list behind it. It also closes the submitter's own edit page, for good, and takes your festival off the filmmaker's public page, if they have one — see What each festival's tile shows.

The Awards tab

The award pools this film is in — the same pools the Awards screen and the award pools work on, read from the film's side. Awards the film is not in are not listed.

The pools come in two groups, Category awards first and then Non-category awards, each A to Z; a group with nothing in it is left out. A film in no pool at all reads "Not in any award pool." Each row carries the award's name and, under it, how the film entered: Director added, Complimentary, Paid add-on, Judge recommendation or Category entry. Beside it sit the film's result in that pool — Undecided, Selected, Finalist, Award Winner and the rest — and an Honorable mention marker when it has one. Both are read-only here; results and mentions are decided on the Awards screen and the pool.

Adding to and removing from a non-category award

For somebody who can make changes to the season:

• Add to an award, under the list, opens a small dialog headed "Add Title to an award". Pick the Award from the non-category awards the film can still enter — ones it competes for through one of the award's eligible categories and is not already in; when there is only one it comes picked. Below it are the pool screen's two choices of How it enters — Director added ("No charge, recorded as a director decision.") or Complimentary ("No charge, the add-on is waived for this entrant.") — and an optional Note for the record, kept on the pool entry with your name and the date and never shown to judges. Press Add to pool, or Cancel. The button is not shown when there is no award left the film can enter.
• Remove, on a non-category row. It asks first, with the same confirmation the pool screen uses for Remove from pool.

A category award is never offered, and its row never has a button. Its pool is the category's entries, kept for you; the way to put a film in it or take it out is Edit categories on the Information tab. See A category award's pool.

Changes go both ways at once. An add or a removal here is on the award's pool and the Awards screen's cards without a reload, and a change made on a pool screen shows on this tab the next time you look at it. If somebody else put the film in the pool while your dialog was open, the dialog says so and the tab re-reads itself.

When the tab only reads

Nobody gets the buttons — no Add to an award and no Remove — when:

• your festival role is Viewer — you can read the tab, and nothing more;
• the panel was opened from an award pool — see Opened from an award pool.

Loading, and when it cannot load

The tab is read the first time you open it, not when the panel opens, with placeholder rows while it loads. "The awards could not be loaded.", with a Try again button, means the read failed; nothing is wrong with the awards. A season that runs no awards at all reads "This season runs no awards."

The Audit tab

The submission's history: one timeline of everything that has happened to it, newest first — how it arrived, every edit to its record, its judging, its status and its hold, its release, the emails sent about it, and what the filmmaker has done on their own two pages. Each entry is one sentence naming who did what — "Jo Whitaker edited 2 fields" — with that person's role under it and the detail under that. It answers the question the rest of the panel cannot — "why does this read differently from what I remember?" — and, in the same place, "has the filmmaker seen their results yet?"

Nothing here can be edited or removed, by anyone. Entries are written as things happen and read back as they stand, which is what makes them worth reading.

Only your own team reaches it. Judges and filmmakers never see this tab or anything on it. It reads the same wherever the submission is opened — from the list, from an award pool or from the Review Queue.

The tab's name carries a count — Audit 19 — of every entry on it, before any filter or search.

Three ways in: the tab itself, last in the strip; See what changed beside the "Edited by the submitter" line on the Information tab, which switches to this tab; or the Emails cell on the Submissions list, which opens the submission straight onto this tab with the Type filter set to Emails and Scorecard access — each email beside what the filmmaker did after it.

What one entry shows

Entries are grouped by day, under a grey band that names the day and the date — Thursday 9 Oct 2026 — with that day's count, 4 events, at its right. Each entry has its time on the left, to the minute. Days and times are in the season's time zone, as it is set now.

The sentence starts with who did it, and their role is under it:

The role is the one they hold now, except on a status, hold or withdrawal entry, which keeps the role they held when they made the change.

Under the sentence sits whatever the entry has to say: the fields an edit moved; label-and-value pairs such as Order SC-40211 and Paid $29.99; a line such as "2 of 3 scorecards filed"; two status pills, from and to; an amber note — the reason a scorecard was sent back, or why an email bounced; or an Open order button. Each kind of entry is described below.

Edits to the record

A burst of saves by one person is one entry. Saves by the same person, each within ten minutes of the one before, fold together — as long as nobody else, FilmScorecard included, did anything to the submission in between. The entry reads "Jo Whitaker edited 2 fields", and its time is the last save's.

Under the sentence, one row per field, with its net change: the field's name as the Information tab prints it — Key cast here is Key cast there, and the statement is Director's statement on a film and Writer's statement on a screenplay — then Was, what it held before the first save, and Now, what the last save left. Fields come in a fixed order whatever order you edited them in. A field that was empty reads Empty. Long values are printed in full, with their line breaks kept, so a synopsis reads as a paragraph.

A field that ended where it started is not a row. It is named once on a Reverted line instead — "Film color was set to Black and white at 9:39 AM and cleared at 9:41 AM. No net change." The count in the sentence is the fields that moved; when every field ended where it started, it counts those instead.

Show the 3 saves, under an entry that folded two or more, lists each save, newest first, with its time and one line — "Changed Aspect ratio from 1.85:1 to 2.39:1", "Rewrote Synopsis", "Added the poster", or "Changed 4 fields: …" with their names for a save that moved more than two. It reads Hide the 3 saves once open.

A few fields are printed in their own terms rather than as stored:

• Production budget, Submission fee and Discount amount read as money — $18,000.00 USD — the same way the Information tab reads a budget back.
• Student project and First time filmmaker read Yes or No. Not stated is an empty answer, so it reads Empty.
• Type reads Film or Screenplay.
• Poster reads Empty and New poster for a first upload, and Previous poster and Empty for a removal. The picture itself is not shown.

What the FilmFreeway sync changes is listed the same way, under FilmFreeway. On a festival connected to FilmFreeway, a sync that updates a film's details is an entry of its own — "FilmFreeway edited 2 fields", with Sync under it and the same Was and Now rows — and it never folds into a person's. A new screener link or runtime from FilmFreeway is an entry too, one per field — "FilmFreeway changed the screener link" (or "the PDF link" on a screenplay), "FilmFreeway set the runtime" — with the old and new value side by side. When the sync replaces something your team or the filmmaker typed here, the Was is what they typed, so you can put it back by hand on the Information tab.

Everything else on it

Each entry is one of six types — the names the Type filter uses (see Finding an entry). Edits are Details; emails are Emails, below. The rest:

Intake — how the submission arrived.

• "Jo Whitaker imported this submission from FilmFreeway", with the import's batch code (Import IMP-2026-08-08-1) and the categories the import put it in. The name is whoever ran the import; FilmScorecard, when that cannot be read.
• "imported this submission from Film Festival Circuit" — a past event FilmScorecard brought in for you. It reads FilmScorecard as the one who did it.
• "FilmFreeway added this submission" — one the FilmFreeway sync brought in, with the sync's batch code (Import IMP-2026-10-09-1) and the categories it arrived in. A film first imported from a CSV export keeps its import entry, under whoever ran it, even once the sync keeps it up to date.
• "FilmScorecard added this submission" — one that did not come from an import.
• "Alex Rivera claimed the submission", with "Signed in as [email protected]" — the filmmaker saved it to their own FilmScorecard account, and this was the address on that account at the time. See When a filmmaker saves a submission to their account.

Judging — the judges' work on it, never their scores.

• "Ana Ruiz started the Drama scorecard" — a judge took the film from their queue. The other two kinds read "the technical scorecard" and "the press kit scorecard".
• "Ana Ruiz skipped this film".
• "Ana Ruiz filed the Drama scorecard", with "2 of 3 scorecards filed" — how many of the film's scorecards had been filed by then, out of those filed or still being scored now. A scorecard your own team fills in is filed under that person's name, with no "started" before it.
• "Jo Whitaker sent Ana Ruiz's Drama scorecard back", with the reason the judge was sent in an amber note — "Reason sent to the judge: …".
• "Ana Ruiz refiled the Drama scorecard", with "3 of 3 scorecards filed, after the return on 9 Oct 2026".
• A scorecard in a category the film has since left reads "a scorecard in a removed category".

No score, answer or note from a scorecard is ever on this tab. Approving a scorecard and editing one are not on it either — the Review Queue keeps those.

Status — where the submission stands.

• "Jo Whitaker changed the status to Selected", with two status pills under it: what it was, an arrow, and what it became.
• "held the submission out of judging" and "returned the submission to judging" — the Hold from judges switch, the bulk bar's Hold and Ready, and an import that arrived on hold, under the name of whoever ran it. See Holding a submission out of judging.
• "withdrew the submission", "restored the submission" and "disqualified the submission". "FilmFreeway withdrew the submission", with Sync under it, is the sync applying a filmmaker's withdrawal on FilmFreeway — see FilmFreeway notices.

Scorecard access — the results, and what the filmmaker did with them.

• "Jo Whitaker released the results" — this submission's own release or the season's, under the name of whoever released it — or "FilmScorecard released the results automatically", when the season's schedule released it as it was approved. The line under it says what the filmmaker can now see. A season's release is listed only on a submission with a filed scorecard.
• "Alex Rivera viewed the final score" — they opened their scorecard before unlocking it — or "viewed the full scorecards", after.
• "signed in with the code" — they typed their access code to get in.
• "started checkout", with the categories, the Total and, when one was used, Promo code Applied.
• "unlocked the full scorecards" (they paid), "unlocked the full scorecards free" (with a free code), or "Jo Whitaker comped the full scorecards", with the category, the Order number, what was Paid when anything was, and the Code when one was used.
• "FilmScorecard refunded order SC-40211, access revoked", with the category and what was Refunded. Refunds arrive from the payment processor and carry no name.
• "sent feedback", with the category. Never a word of what they wrote.
• "created a share link", "turned off the share link" and "saved a share card", with its Style and Size.

Details, besides edits — the filmmaker's own submission page.

• "Alex Rivera opened the submission page".
• "signed in with the code on the submission page".
• "messaged the festival · Their entry" — or Awards, Their scorecard or Something else: the filmmaker wrote to you with Contact the festival. The topic only, never what they wrote; the message itself went to your questions address (see Messages from filmmakers).

The money in these lines is shown only to somebody with View revenue and payouts. For anybody else, started checkout, unlocks, comps and refunds are not on the tab at all — not hidden, never read, and in none of its counts — and a release's line says what the filmmaker can see without the price. Open order, under an unlock or a refund, opens that order on Orders; it is drawn only for the organization's owners and org admins, the people that screen opens for. Anybody else with the permission reads the order number and no button.

A filmmaker's visits fold by the day. Opening the same page — or sending feedback on the same category — more than once in a day is one entry, "viewed the full scorecards 3 times", with every time under it (Views 9:02 AM, 1:15 PM, 8:40 PM) and the entry at the last of them. One visit has no count.

A visit that began in one of your emails says which — "Opened from the Scorecard ready email", with the times when the day held more than one. A visit from an email sent before FilmScorecard began recording this, or from a typed address, says nothing about where it came from.

A visit counts once the page has been on their screen for two seconds. A mail scanner checking the link, or a page closed at once, is not a visit. Only the filmmaker's own visits count — see What is recorded, and what is not.

Emails on the Audit tab

Every email FilmScorecard sends the filmmaker about this submission is an entry of its own, in the same newest-first timeline as everything else, under the type Emails. FilmScorecard does the sending, so the entry is its own, with System under it:

9:02 AM · FilmScorecard sent the Scorecard ready email System To [email protected] · Queued 9:01 AM · Sent 9:02 AM · Delivered 9:02 AM

The sentence is one of three: "sent the … email", "could not send the … email" or "did not send the … email". Once the email provider has reported on a sent email, the sentence ends with the newest report — "sent the Receipt email, which was delivered", "…, which bounced", "…, which was delayed" or "…, which was marked as spam" — and every report stays listed under it, oldest first. "The Scorecard ready email with a promo code" is the results email when a release attached a code and it went in the email. The name is the one Emails your festival sends lists it under:

Under it, the address and what became of the email, each with its time — on the entry's own day the time alone, on a later day with its date. First To, the address it went to or would have gone to; then Queued, when the send was asked for (left out when that record is gone); then the outcome; then anything the mail service reported afterwards, in the order it happened:

Delivered, Delayed, Bounced and Marked as spam are added to an entry as the mail service reports them, after the send; the entry keeps its place in the timeline. They exist only for emails sent since FilmScorecard began recording them: an older email reads Sent and nothing after it.

The same "Not sent", for the same reason and address, twice in a row is one entry, not a pile. Press Email submission links again on a submission it passed by last time, and if it passes it by for the same reason, the one entry moves forward to the latest time.

What is not an entry:

• A send that was never due. The season's automatic send or Send to N now skipping somebody who has already been invited, either of them waiting on a submission with no category, or a send asked for twice, leaves nothing here.
• What the email said. No copy of any email is kept, so the tab cannot show it again. The Emails tab in Settings shows what each kind of email looks like — see Emails your festival sends.
• Opens and clicks. Nothing records whether the filmmaker opened an email or pressed its button. What the tab does show is the filmmaker arriving on their scorecard or submission page, and which email they came from — see Everything else on it and Opens and clicks.
• Emails to judges and to your team. Only emails to the submitter about this submission are listed.
• Anything sent before these entries began. The first emails listed are the first ones sent after the tab started recording them.

Finding an entry

Along the top of the tab sit a search box and two filters, Type and Who.

The search box — "Search 19 events" — finds an entry by anything it prints: a name, a role, the sentence, a field's name, a value it held or holds, a label and its value — an email's "Bounced", say, or a view's "9:02 AM" — a line or a note. Capitals do not matter, and a straight apostrophe finds a curly one. The list follows a moment after you stop typing. The ✕ in the box empties it, and so does Escape; a second Escape, with the box empty, closes the panel as usual.

Type and Who each open a short list with a box per choice and, beside each, how many entries it would show — counted with the other filter and the search already applied:

• Type: Details, Emails, Intake, Judging, Scorecard access, Status.
• Who: Festival staff, Judges, Submitter, System.

Tick as many as you like. Within one filter an entry needs to match any one of them; across the two it must match both. Select all, at the head of the list, ticks every choice, with a count such as 2 of 6 beside it, and Clear empties that filter. The button reads Any type or Anyone with nothing ticked, the choice's name with one, and 2 selected with more, and takes an indigo tint while it is set. Escape or a click elsewhere closes the list. Opened from the Emails cell on the list, Type starts with Emails and Scorecard access ticked and reads 2 selected; from there it is yours to change like any other filter.

Clear filters, beside them once anything is set, empties both filters and the search at once.

When nothing matches, the list reads No events match, with a line naming what you asked — "No Emails by System on this submission." or "No events matching “bounced” on this submission." — and a Clear filters button.

Changing a filter or the search starts again from the newest entry. While the new answer is on its way, the entries you were reading stay on screen.

What is recorded, and what is not

Every field on the Project, Technical specs, Credits, Submitter, Personal details, Links, Background and Entry record cards, plus the poster, with two exceptions:

• Runtime or Pages is not recorded. It describes the current cut, not the record.
• The Tracking number and the Submission date cannot change, so they have nothing to record.

An edit made in Edit mode on the Submissions list is recorded exactly as the same edit here would be: under your name, with a row for each field that cell or pop-out changed — and a run of cell edits ten minutes apart or less is one entry, like any burst of saves. See Edit mode.

The staff-only fields are recorded here like any other, and stay staff-only: a connected AI app reading a submission's history is not shown their lines.

The Screener access card is not recorded at all — neither the screener link nor the password, nor a screenplay's PDF. A save that changed only the screener link shows nothing here. The one exception is the FilmFreeway sync: a screener link or runtime it changes is an entry under FilmFreeway, old value and new — see Edits to the record.

Beyond the record, the tab lists what Everything else on it and Emails on the Audit tab describe — its arrival, its judging, its status, its hold, a withdrawal, its release, the filmmaker's visits and actions, and its emails. Some things that happen to a submission are still not listed: which categories it competes in, your flag, its Priority, its place in an award pool, a scorecard's approval and any edit to one, and a move to another season.

A move is not an entry, and the history goes with the submission. The new season's team reads all of it, and the season it left keeps none. The judging lines of scorecards the move deleted go with them — see Moving a submission to another festival.

Your team's reading is not recorded. You or a colleague opening the submission, here or on its scorecard and submission pages, leaves no entry — see Seeing what a submitter sees. Nor does a judge opening it. Only the filmmaker's visits are listed: their scorecard and their submission page, folded by the day, and signing in to either with their code.

FilmScorecard's own measurements never appear here. FilmScorecard also keeps track of how its pages are used — to run and improve the product — and reads that only itself; it is never shown to a festival.

Four more things to know:

• A save that changed nothing writes nothing. Pressing Save changes on an untouched form leaves no entry, and neither does a submitter saving a page they did not alter.
• Replacing a poster with another file leaves no entry — whether from this panel's card or by dropping a file on the row on the list. The record points at one poster, and a new file goes in the same place — so the record itself does not change, and the tab cannot see it. Only the first upload (Empty to New poster) and a removal (Previous poster to Empty) are recorded. The submitter's page has the same rule, with one wrinkle: a poster they replace still moves the date on the Information tab's "Edited by the submitter" line, so that line can be newer than anything this tab lists.
• Edits from before the Audit tab arrived are not in it. The edit history starts from that day, however many hands the record had been through before.
• An older submission shows only what was already on record. Its arrival, its emails, its unlocks and refunds, its judges' starts, filings, skips and send-backs, and its release are all there, because FilmScorecard already kept them. Its status changes, holds, withdrawals and saves to a filmmaker's account from before this timeline arrived are not, because nothing kept them — except that a film already on hold that day shows when it was held, and by whom. The filmmaker's visits, sign-ins, checkouts, feedback, share links and share cards, and every email's delivery, start from that day too.

Reading it

The tab shows 50 entries at a time, newest first. The line at its foot says what you are looking at — "19 events, all types, by anyone, newest first." — and, with a filter or a search set, how many matched out of the whole: "1 of 19 events, Scorecard access, by Festival staff, newest first." With more than 50 to show it reads "Showing 50 of 212 events, …", beside a Load 50 more button (fewer when fewer are left) that adds the next ones under those already there. A day's count in its grey band is that day's whole total under your filters, even when Load more has not brought all of it in yet.

Every submission has at least one entry — how it arrived — so the tab is never empty unless a filter or the search empties it.

The tab is read when the submission opens, beside the rest of its record — that is what puts the count in its name — so it is usually there the moment you choose it. Placeholder bars stand in when it is not; coming back to the tab is instant. While the tab is in front of you it is re-read about once a minute, and again when you return to the browser tab — the same rhythm as the rest of the panel, see Opening, closing and resizing.

Your own saves appear at once. Saving the Information tab, uploading a poster — from this panel or by dropping it on the row — or removing one refreshes the history in the same breath, so your entry is there when you switch over. Anything else appears within the minute — a submitter's save, a colleague's change, the filmmaker's visit, an email once FilmScorecard's background sending has dealt with it, or what the mail service reports about one.

The tab can be named in the address. tab=audit on the end of a submission's link opens the panel straight onto it — handy in a message to a colleague. tab=awards does the same for the Awards tab.

What does not work yet

• No scorecard opens from here. The cards on the Scoring tab open in place to show their questions and notes; approving, rewriting and the full audit trail live in the Review Queue.
• No scorecard is filled in from here either. Fill out a scorecard is on the row menu on the list, not in this panel — see Filling out a scorecard yourself.
• Nothing on the Press kit card links to the field it is waiting for, and nothing on the Information tab marks a field as one a press kit watches. You match them up by name. The submitter's own page does mark them, with a small "Press kit" badge beside every field one of its items watches — so the hint exists, one screen over: open their page yourself to read it, as Seeing what a submitter sees describes.
• The scorecard access line does not say how a submission was unlocked — bought, comped or unlocked for nothing all read the same there, and there is no refund control anywhere in the panel. The Audit tab tells them apart, for somebody with View revenue and payouts — see Everything else on it.
• The Audit tab says an email went, not what it said. Each email about the submission is listed with its address, whether it was sent and — for one sent since FilmScorecard began recording it — whether it was delivered or bounced; see Emails on the Audit tab. No copy is kept, and nothing records whether the filmmaker opened it, only whether they came to their page from it.
• Judge this first does not say who set it, or when, and nothing else in FilmScorecard shows that either. Hold from judges does not say so on its card — the Audit tab does, for every hold since it began recording them.
• A scorecard on a category the submission has left is not shown here. It is in the Review Queue.
• The Awards tab does not set results or mentions, and does not add a film to a category award. Results and mentions are decided on the Awards screen and the pool; a category award's pool follows the film's categories.
• The Audit tab covers one submission, and does not export. There is no history across a season or your organization, and no way to download one.
• The Audit tab does not see everything. The screener link, the password, a screenplay's PDF, the runtime or page count (except a link or runtime the FilmFreeway sync changed), a FilmFreeway notice, the categories, the flag, Priority, award pools, a scorecard's approval or edits, a move, and anybody on your team reading the submission are outside it, and a poster replaced by another file leaves no entry — see What is recorded, and what is not.
• Nothing tells you the panel has just been re-read. A score or a scoring card that changes while you are reading changes quietly, and a form you are part-way through typing is never disturbed by it.
• Only Vimeo, YouTube and Google Drive play inside the panel. Every other screener opens in a new tab at the link recorded for it, and a frame that shows the platform's own error instead of the film is something FilmScorecard cannot detect — use the link beside it before you conclude the screener is broken.
• Only the Audit tab says whether a filmmaker has saved the submission to their own account, and only for a save since it began recording them. It changes nothing you can do — see When a filmmaker saves a submission to their account.