The tagline, the statement and the poster
Three parts of a submission's record sit on the Information tab of the detail panel and behave a little differently from the fields around them: the one-line tagline, the submitter's statement, and the poster image.
Everything else on that tab — and how the panel itself opens, closes and saves — is on Opening a submission. What "a complete record" means, and the quiet marker on rows that are short of one, is on An incomplete record.
All three can also be edited by the submitter, on their own page, while judging is under way — see Letting submitters fix their own details. Everything below is your side of them.
The tagline
Tagline is a single-line field in the Project card, directly above Synopsis. It is the one-line hook — the line that would sit under the title on a poster.
It saves with the rest of the record: type it, then press Save changes in the panel's footer. Closing the panel without saving throws it away.
Where it shows up: in italics above the synopsis on the panel's Display tab, and in italics above the synopsis in the left-hand pane of a judge's scoring screen. Leave it empty and nothing is drawn — no blank line, no placeholder.
This is not the season's Description. The short line about your festival on the Season tab's About this season card, in Settings — called Tagline there until recently — is a different thing on a different screen.
You can also write it from the Submissions list, without opening the submission: Edit mode's Tagline column opens it in a pop-out, with the same 4,000-character limit, and saves it the same way. See Edit mode.
Your field holds 4,000 characters; the submitter's holds 120. If you type a long tagline here and that submitter opens their own page, their screen shows the count over the limit and refuses to save anything at all until they shorten the line. A tagline over 120 characters and a submission link are a bad combination — see What a submitter can change.
The statement
A submission carries one statement, and it is an ordinary field on the form — a box in the Project card, directly under Synopsis. It holds the filmmaker's own words about the work.
What it is called
Its heading follows what the submission is, and it reads the same way on every screen that shows it:
| The submission | The statement is headed |
|---|---|
| A film | Director's statement |
| A screenplay | Writer's statement |
There is nothing to choose and no other wording. Change nothing about the statement itself and it is still headed the same way — the heading comes from the submission's type, which is set when the submission is created and is shown as the Film or Screenplay pill in the panel's header.
Nobody is credited
A statement names no author. There is no field for a person's name, nothing is signed, and no name is printed with it anywhere — not on the Display tab, not on a judge's screen.
The people who made the film are recorded separately, in the Credits card further down the same tab, and they are what a judge reads under Credits.
Writing one
- Open the submission and choose the Information tab.
- Find the box under Synopsis, in the Project card, headed Director's statement or Writer's statement.
- Type or paste the statement.
- Press Save changes in the panel's footer.
It saves with the rest of the record, exactly like the synopsis: nothing is written until you press Save changes, and closing the panel first throws your typing away without asking.
Three smaller rules:
- Clearing the box and saving removes the statement. A box of spaces counts as empty everywhere — the record reads as having no statement at all.
- Up to 20,000 characters. Longer than that is refused with a message under the box, and nothing else on the form is saved either.
- Your line breaks are kept. Paragraphs come out as paragraphs on the Display tab and on the judge's screen.
Where it is read
| Where | How it looks |
|---|---|
| The panel's Display tab | Under the synopsis, with the heading above it. |
| A judge's scoring screen | In the left pane, between the poster and the credits, under the same heading. The staff scoring page shows the identical pane. |
| A press kit item | An item watching the Statement field is satisfied the moment there is one, and the item's line shows the statement itself. With no statement it reads "Empty, nothing submitted yet". Once judging has closed, a season set to Keep its score as judged keeps the item as it stood — see Freezing the press kit when judging closes. |
| The submitter's own page | As a box they can rewrite, under the same heading, on its Submission details page, until their page closes to edits. |
| The completeness marker | A missing statement is one of the gaps the amber dot and the note on the Information tab name — see An incomplete record. |
Nothing is drawn when there is no statement. No heading, no empty block, no placeholder — the Display tab and the judge's pane simply leave it out.
What a statement is attached to
A statement belongs to the film, not to the season. If the same film is entered in more than one of your seasons, its statement travels with it — write it once and it is there in both.
What an import writes
The column you map to Submitter statement on step 2 of an import becomes this statement, as it stands in the file, with no editing and nothing added. A blank cell writes nothing and is not reported as a problem. See Mapping your file's columns.
The poster
The Poster card sits at the foot of the Information tab, below the form.
| How | What it does |
|---|---|
| Upload a poster | Choose an image from your computer. It uploads straight away. |
| Replace poster | The same button once a poster is on file. The new image replaces the old one. |
| Drop a file on the card | Drag an image from your desktop over the card — it turns indigo while the file is over it — and let go. Exactly the same as choosing it with the button. |
| Remove | Clears the poster from the record. |
You do not have to open the panel at all. Every row on the Submissions list takes a dropped image the same way, and the toolbar's Edit mode adds a Poster column with a button on every row — the quick way through a whole season of imported rows. See Adding posters from the list.
What the file may be: one PNG, JPEG or WebP image, up to 10 MB. Anything else is refused before it is sent anywhere — a PDF, a TIFF and an SVG are all refused, and so is a 20 MB photograph. Dropping two or more files at once is refused too, and none of them is uploaded.
The image is prepared in your browser before it is sent. It is fitted to 1,600 pixels on its longer side — a smaller image is never enlarged — any transparent areas are flattened onto white, and it is saved as a JPEG. That prepared copy is what is stored, what the card shows you and what judges see; the file on your computer is not touched. The type and size rules above are checked on the file you chose, so a 9 MB PNG is accepted and stored as a much smaller JPEG. If your browser cannot prepare an image, the file is sent exactly as you chose it.
The poster uploads by itself, straight from your browser, so it does not wait for Save changes and it is not affected by closing the panel afterwards. While it is going the button reads "Uploading…", Remove is greyed out, and the card does not light or take a dropped file. The same happens while a poster is being uploaded for this submission from its row on the list behind the panel.
Where it shows up: on the Information tab itself, once uploaded, in the left pane of a judge's scoring screen under Poster, and — once the film wins an award — beside its WINNER block on the Awards screen. It is not on the Display tab.
If an upload fails
Each of these appears as a red line inside the card, and the record still shows whatever poster it had before, which may be none.
| The message | What it means |
|---|---|
| "Drop one poster at a time." | Two or more files were dropped on the card. Nothing was sent. |
| "Posters must be a PNG, JPEG or WebP image." | The file is not one of the three. Nothing was sent. |
| "That poster is over 10 MB. Upload a smaller file." | Too big, or an empty file. Nothing was sent. |
| "The poster could not be uploaded. Try again." | Something went wrong in transit. Press Upload a poster again, or drop the file again. |
| "You do not have permission to change this submission." | Your account cannot change this season — your access may have changed, or the submission may have been withdrawn or moved, while your panel was open. |
A failed upload never half-succeeds on screen. If you are not shown the new poster, it is not on the record.
The submitter's own upload has stricter rules than yours
Their page asks for at least 1200 by 1800 pixels and states portrait 2:3; your card asks for neither. So an image you can upload here may be refused on their side. The stored file is the same size either way: their browser prepares the image exactly as yours does, so a poster they upload is also fitted to 1,600 pixels on its longer side — the minimum is a rule about the artwork they start from, not about what is kept. They also have no Remove button — they can replace a poster but never clear one, so a poster that has to go is yours to remove.
When a filmmaker saves the submission to their account
All three stay yours to edit. A filmmaker can save their submission to their own FilmScorecard account — see When a filmmaker saves a submission to their account. It changes nothing on this tab: the Tagline field, the statement box and the Poster card work exactly as described above.
It gives them one more way to fill two of them. From their own copy of the film they can send a tagline or a poster to your record, but only while their submission page still takes edits, and only for a field your press kit is still waiting for. A send arrives exactly as a save on their page does: the "Edited by the submitter" line moves, and the Audit tab lists it in the submitter's name, with Submitter under it. The statement is never sent that way; they write it on their submission page.
What is not here
- No second statement. One submission, one statement box. There are no types to pick between, no "add another", and no way to record two people's words separately — if you need both, they go in the one box.
- No credited person. Nothing anywhere attributes the statement to a name.
- No cropping, and no thumbnails. The image is fitted to 1,600 pixels on its longer side and nothing else is done to it: it is never cropped to a shape, and the list draws no small version of it. A poster stored before this preparation existed is left exactly as it was sent.
- No way back to the original. What is stored is the prepared JPEG; the file you chose stays only on your own computer.
- No second poster. One image per submission; uploading another replaces it, with no confirmation and no undo.
A filmmaker can write their own statement and upload their own poster on their own submission page, while judging is under way, with nothing more than a link and the nine-character code you send them. See Letting submitters fix their own details. A filmmaker who has saved the submission to their own account can also send a tagline or a poster from there, under the limits described above.
If you remember a Statements card here, it is gone. A submission used to carry any number of typed statements — Writer's, Director's, Producer's, Actor's — each with its own Save and Remove buttons and an optional credited person. That is now the one field described above, saved with the rest of the record.