# The tagline, the statement and the poster

> From FilmScorecard Help: https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/statements-taglines-and-posters

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](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/opening-a-submission.md). What "a complete
record" means, and the quiet marker on rows that are short of one, is on
[An incomplete record](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/an-incomplete-record.md).

**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](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/submission-links.md). 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](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/festival-settings.md#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](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/submissions.md#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](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/submission-links.md#what-a-submitter-can-change-and-what-they-cannot).

## 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

1. Open the submission and choose the **Information** tab.
2. Find the box under **Synopsis**, in the **Project** card, headed
   **Director's statement** or **Writer's statement**.
3. Type or paste the statement.
4. 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](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/festival-settings.md#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](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/an-incomplete-record.md). |

**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](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/mapping-your-columns.md).

## 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](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/submissions.md#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](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/awards.md#a-decided-card) 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](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/opening-a-submission.md#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](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/submission-links.md). 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](#when-a-filmmaker-saves-the-submission-to-their-account).

**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.