Submissions

Every submission in one season, in one table: what came in, which categories it competes in, whether you have selected it, and what it has scored so far. This is the screen you work from when you are building a program.

It is a working screen: you can change a submission's selection status one at a time or in bulk, change which categories a submission competes in, fill in a scorecard yourself, withdraw a submission from the season, move a submission to another season or festival, flag rows for yourself, mark a submission Priority so judges reach it first, put submissions On hold so judges are not offered them yet, email submitters a link to fix their own details, drop a poster image straight onto a row, fill in titles, taglines, synopses, screener links, screenplay PDFs and more straight down the list in Edit mode, and open any submission in a detail panel — see Opening a submission. A few small things are still waiting for later releases, and What does not work yet names them.

Finding the screen

Submissions is the second row in the season block of the left navigation, under your festival's name, just below Dashboard. The row carries no count: the number of submissions in the season is in this screen's title, and that one keeps up — see The list keeps itself up to date.

Its address is:

/org/<organization>/<festival>/<season>/submissions

Your search, filters, sort, rows-per-page and open submission all live in the address, so a narrowed list is a link you can send to a colleague, and reloading the page keeps you exactly where you were.

The list keeps itself up to date

The season's submissions are read once and then held in your browser. Everything that narrows or reorders them — the search box, the Category, Status, Scoring, Poster, Priority and Judging filters, the four score ranges, every column sort, the Rows picker and Load more — is worked out from what is already loaded. Each one applies as you press it, nothing reloads the page, and nothing sends you back to the top of the list.

And the list re-reads itself in the background, so a screen you left open after lunch is not a lunchtime's worth out of date:

• Whenever you come back to the tab. Switch to another window or another application and back, and the list re-reads itself as you return — a glance away of a few seconds is too short to bother it.
• About once a minute while the tab is in front of you.
• Never while the tab is behind something else. A forgotten tab asks the festival's records for nothing.
• Straight after anything you change here — a status move, a flag, a priority change, a hold, a category edit, a withdrawal, a move to another season, a scorecard you fill in yourself, a poster you drop on a row, a cell you save in Edit mode.

What arrives that way is what other people have been doing: a scorecard approved in the Review Queue, a colleague moving a submission to Selected, marking one Priority or putting one On hold, a withdrawal, or the rows of an import — or of a FilmFreeway sync — that has just landed. They appear in place, under whatever filter and sort you are working in — a row that no longer matches your filters leaves, and a new one arrives in its right position rather than at the end.

A refresh never moves you. Your scroll position, the rows you have ticked, the program planner's runtime and an open detail panel all survive it. The one thing it takes away is a ticked row for a submission that has left the season while you had it ticked: it drops out of your selection, and out of the count on the bulk bar, because there is nothing left there to act on.

The navigation keeps its own time. The counts beside Review Queue and Awards re-read themselves separately, about once a minute while the tab is in front of you, so for a moment after a background refresh they can disagree with what this screen shows. The title, the footer and the filter counts are the ones that move with the list.

When the list cannot refresh

A refresh that fails is retried a few times before anything is said. If all of those fail, one message appears at the bottom of the screen:

Couldn't refresh the list. Showing what was last loaded.

The rows stay exactly where they are. Nothing is emptied, nothing is greyed out and nothing you were doing is lost — what you are reading is simply the last version that arrived, and the next refresh that works replaces it. When that refresh lands the message goes away on its own, because it has stopped being true; you can also clear it sooner with Dismiss.

While the list is in that state, a filter, a sort or a Load more still works at once, over the version you are reading. Nothing waits when the screen first opens either: the rows you see first are already the held copy.

If your session has ended, this is where you find out: you signed out in another tab, or somebody removed your access to this festival while you had the list open. The screen does not leave you on rows you can no longer act on — it sends you to the log-in screen, or to an ordinary "page not found" if the season is no longer yours to see.

Who can work here

Everyone in your organization who can open the season gets the same screen, with the same buttons. Unlike the category library, there is no read-only version here: owners and staff members have identical capability.

Seven things are exceptions. Fill out a scorecard, in the row menu, needs the "Approve scorecards and resolve flags" capability, because filing a scorecard here also approves it. Without that capability the item is simply not in the menu — see Filling out a scorecard yourself. Release scorecard, on the Settings tab of the detail panel, needs the same capability and is likewise not drawn without it — see Releasing one submission's scorecard. Edit categories offers the organization's whole category library — not only the categories the season is already running — to owners and org admins, the people who can attach a category on the season's Categories tab; everyone else is offered the season's own categories and nothing more. See Editing a submission's categories. The Move to another festival row, on the Settings tab of the detail panel, is drawn only for the people who can open the season's Settings screen — owners, org admins and festival admins. Coordinators, programmers and viewers do not see it. See Moving a submission to another festival. The Judge this first and Hold from judges rows, on the same tab, are drawn for everybody who can make changes to the season — everyone except viewers, who still see the Priority mark and the Judging column on the list. See Priority: judge this first and Holding a submission out of judging. Email submission links, on the bulk bar, follows the Move card's rule: it is drawn only for the people who can open the season's Settings screen. See Emailing submission-page links. And Dismiss, on a FilmFreeway notice at the top of a submission's record, follows the same rule, and is drawn only while FilmFreeway sync is on for your organization — everybody else reads the notice with no button. See FilmFreeway notices.

The bulk bar's Hold and Ready are on a viewer's bar too, beside the status moves, and a viewer's press of either is refused: the rows go back, the message at the bottom of the screen reads "You do not have permission to change this submission.", and nothing was changed.

Anyone else who opens the address — including hosts of other festivals — sees an ordinary "page not found", exactly as if they had mistyped it. A logged-out visitor is sent to the log-in screen first.

A submission competes in every category it is attached to

There is no "main" category any more. A submission has one category or several, all of equal standing, and it is judged separately in each of them against that category's own scorecards. Every category a submission can be scored in scores out of 100, so two categories are comparable — but their scores are never added together or averaged. Two categories can share one technical review between them, and a combined figure would count it twice. A submission in two categories therefore has two scores out of 100, and this list has room for one of them.

Three consequences run through the rest of this page:

• The Category cell shows one pill and a count of the rest.
• The Category filter matches any of a submission's categories, so the numbers beside the options can add up to more than the season holds.
• The score columns show one of a submission's scores — its best category's. See Which category's score a row shows.

Changing the set is Edit categories.

What is on the list, and what is not

Withdrawn and disqualified submissions are excluded from everything on this screen. Not from the table, not from the count in the title, not from the filter counts, not from the footer, and not from the program planner's arithmetic. There is no filter that brings them back and no view that shows them.

This is the one rule worth carrying around, because it explains most surprises: a season of 40 entries with 4 withdrawn reads "36 submissions" everywhere, consistently.

A submission On hold is on the list like any other, and in every count on this screen. Holding a film keeps it away from judges, not off your screens — see Holding a submission out of judging.

Withdrawing is described under Withdrawing a submission.

Reading a row

Each row is one submission:

• Submission — the title, which is a button that opens the detail panel. A small indigo double chevron before the title means the submission is marked Priority — see Priority: judge this first. Underneath it sits the tracking number from the source platform in monospace, a small FILM or SCREENPLAY pill, a small amber dot when the record is incomplete, and the submitter's name. Any of those is left out when the submission does not have it.
• Category — every category the submission competes in. A row has one line, so the cell shows the first category alphabetically as a pill, then a quieter +2 pill standing for the rest. Hover the +2 to read their names, or open the submission, where all of them are spelled out. A submission attached to nothing at all reads No category in plain text rather than leaving the cell blank.
• Length — films read as minutes and seconds (14:02), screenplays as 108 pages. A submission whose length nobody has recorded shows nothing at all — not a dash, not a zero, because zero would be a measurement someone took.
• Status — In Consideration, Selected or Not Selected. Selected is green; Not Selected rows are drawn quieter than the rest so a decided list still reads at a glance.
• Judging — Ready in a grey pill, or On hold in an amber one: whether judges are offered the film. See Holding a submission out of judging.
• Scores in — one tick per judge the season expects in the row's category, filling in light purple as judges file and purple as scorecards are approved in the Review Queue. Empty while no judge has filed for the row's category. A category with no creative scorecard has no judges to count, so it draws no ticks.
• Technical, Marketing and Creative — what each kind of scorecard has put into this row's score so far, banded in five colours from green to red. A section with nothing approved yet reads a plain — — unless scorecards have been filed in it and are waiting for approval, when the Creative or Technical cell shows a small grey box with how many; see Scorecards waiting for approval. The Creative figure counts only the judges who have filed: the Creative points are divided equally among the judges the season expects per category, so a film with one of three judges in carries only that judge's third of them. Marketing is the press kit — it is the one place in FilmScorecard that section goes by another name.
• Overall — those three added up: the points this category has banked so far, out of 100. It reads — until something has been approved, and it climbs as the outstanding work is approved. Its colour answers a different question from its number — see About scores.
• Purchased — only for somebody with View revenue and payouts: a green tick when the filmmaker has unlocked their scorecard, bought or comped, and it has not been refunded; an empty cell otherwise. Without that permission the column is not drawn. See Selling scorecard access.
• Submitted — the date the entry arrived (Jul 28), or nothing when the source did not carry one.
• Emails — the last email FilmScorecard sent the filmmaker about this submission, as an envelope beside its date (Oct 9): ticked and green once delivered, crossed and red when it bounced or failed to send, plain once sent. A dash means nothing has been sent. Hover it for the email's name and the count — "Scorecard ready, delivered Oct 9 · 3 emails in all". Clicking the cell, dash included, opens the submission on its Audit tab with the Type filter set to Emails and Scorecard access, so each email sits beside what the filmmaker did after it — opening the scorecard (and from which email), starting checkout, unlocking, creating a share link, saving a share card.
• Flag — your own flag. See Flags are private.
• The three-dot menu at the end of the row — see The row menu.

Hovering a row turns an empty section cell — nothing approved and nothing waiting — into a + that opens the scorecard chooser, so you can fill that card in yourself. It appears only where there is something to fill in: you need the capability to approve scorecards, and the row's category has to carry a scorecard in that section that can award points. Everywhere else the dash simply stays a dash. See Filling out a scorecard yourself.

Hovering also turns the row number into a checkbox; the whole cell is the click target. On a phone or a narrow window the checkboxes and the + are simply always there.

Nothing on a row says whether a submitter has edited it, whether they have been sent their submission page, or whether they have written to you. The first is one line on the detail panel; the second is on that submission's Audit tab, with every other email sent about it, and as a season-wide count, Sent so far, on Settings → Emails; the third is a line on the same Audit tab — "messaged the festival", with the topic — while the message itself is emailed to the season's Contact email, or your organization's support address. See Letting submitters fix their own details, Messages from filmmakers and Inviting submitters.

Nothing on a row says whether it has a poster, either — until you switch Edit mode on in the toolbar, which by default adds a Poster column showing each row's thumbnail or a dashed + box where there is none. The Poster filter is the other way to find the rows without one. See Adding posters from the list and Edit mode.

The amber dot

A small amber dot beside the FILM or SCREENPLAY pill means the submission's record is short of something — a synopsis, a statement, and on a hand-entered record a tagline or a poster too. Hover it and it names the gaps.

It is advice and nothing else. No submission is ever refused, blocked or treated differently for carrying one, and there is no filter for it. The full rule — including why an imported submission is measured on less — is on An incomplete record.

The fastest way to clear a lot of them is to ask the filmmakers. Every gap the dot counts is a field the submitter can fill in themselves, on their own page, until judging closes — see Letting submitters fix their own details.

Scorecards waiting for approval

When a film's creative or technical scorecards have been filed and none of them has been approved yet, its Creative or Technical cell shows a small grey box with how many are waiting — 2 — where it would otherwise show a dash. Hover it to read "2 creative scorecards waiting for approval".

• It is a count, not a score. It is grey whatever the cards say, and it puts nothing into Overall, which stays a dash until something is approved. Like everything else on the row, it belongs to the category the row shows.
• Clicking it opens the submission on its Scoring tab, where each waiting card is listed with Pending approval.
• Once one of them is approved, the cell shows its figure as before. Any still waiting are then only in the Scores in ticks.
• The Creative box can carry a small + in its top-right corner, shown when you hover the row — and always, on a phone or a narrow window. It opens the scorecard chooser to start another creative scorecard. It is there only while the panel has room — fewer creative scorecards approved or waiting than the season's Judges per category — and only for people who can approve scorecards. The Technical box has none.

Which category's score a row shows

A submission in two categories is judged twice — once in each — so it has two scores, and the row has room for one. The row shows whichever has banked the most points. Every scoreable category is scored out of 100, so that is a straight comparison. Never a total across them, and never a blend — the Overall figure, the three section figures beside it and every colour on the row all belong to that one category.

Which one that is, decided in this order:

1. The most points banked. A category with no score — nothing approved yet, no scorecards attached, nothing attached that can award a point, or every section it is scored on weighted zero — sits below any category that has one.
2. The category name, A to Z, if they are level — so the row shows the same thing on every reload rather than shuffling.

Points banked means the further-along category usually wins. A category three judges have finished has more in the bank than one where a single judge scored higher, so it is the one the row speaks with — even though the single-judge category may end up scoring better. The Scoring tab of the detail panel is where you see both.

The gap shows on the detail panel, not on the row. A judge reviews a submission once, tagged with the one category they are reviewing it under, so a two-category submission is only scored in both if judges actually reach both. Judges go on being offered a film until each of its categories has its full panel, and each judge is given the category furthest behind — so both fill, as long as some of your judges may score each category, but not always at the same pace. The row shows the category that is furthest ahead; the Scoring tab of the detail panel lays every category out on its own, and an empty section there is how you spot a category nobody has reached yet.

Whichever category wins drives the whole row together — the four score columns and their colours, the Scores in ticks, which Scoring filter the row answers to, and every score sort. They cannot end up disagreeing with each other about one row.

Every category's own scoring, in full, is on the Scoring tab of the detail panel. A submission attached to no category at all has nothing to be scored against: its score cells are all dashes, and the panel says so in words.

About scores

A score reaches this screen only when a scorecard is approved. Judges file scorecards in their own workspace, and every filed scorecard waits in the Review Queue until someone approves it — approval is what releases the score. Concretely, on this screen:

• The score columns read a plain "—" — never a 0 — until something counts toward the row's shown category: an approved scorecard, or a press kit whose items are in. A scorecard still waiting in the queue contributes nothing to any figure here, however finished it is — the one thing it changes is that a Creative or Technical cell with cards waiting and none approved shows a grey count of them in place of the dash; see Scorecards waiting for approval. Overall stays a dash. (Elsewhere in FilmScorecard the same emptiness is spelled out as "No scores"; on this screen, with four score cells side by side, it is a dash.)
• Any approved scorecard that can award points starts the score — a judge's creative scorecard, the technical review or the press-kit card. A film whose technical review is approved before any judge has filed shows that review's points in Technical and Overall straight away.
• A press kit counts on its own. Items that fill themselves in from the submission's record count from the start, so a film no judge has scored yet shows its press kit points in Marketing and Overall, and ranks on them. It still has no scorecard for the filmmaker to see, be sent or buy until a scorecard is approved. A press kit with items a coordinator marks by hand waits for that coordinator's card.
• The Scores in ticks count every creative scorecard a judge has filed against the season's Judges per category: approved ones in purple, ones still waiting in the Review Queue in light purple, the same two colours as the dashboard. Only the purple ones count toward the score.
• The Scoring filter buckets rows by the same released work — see The three Scoring buckets.
• Sorting by any score column is only as interesting as your approvals. Rows with nothing released yet all tie, and tied rows fall back to title order. See Sorting.
• The best-category rule above is measured on released work too: a category whose scorecards are all still in the queue reads as not started.

A scorecard a colleague filled in counts here the same way a judge's does, and it counts from the moment it is filed, because filing it also approves it. See Filling out a scorecard yourself.

A scorecard filed under a category the film no longer competes in counts toward nothing on this row — see Editing a submission's categories.

Every screen reads the same score. The figure on this row is the one the detail panel, the award screens, the CSV export, a connected AI app and the filmmaker's own scorecard show for the same film in the same category.

Scores in can read past the panel size — "4 of 3" — and that is the truth, not a fault. Judges per category decides how many judges are offered each category; it is not a cap on how many scorecards a category may carry. A colleague can file their own scorecard on a category whose panel is already full, and one filed while a judge is part-way through leaves the category one over when that judge files. When more have been filed than the panel plans for, the ticks grow to match and all of them are filled — and the Creative points are then divided four ways instead of three, so no film can bank more than the section is worth.

The three Scoring buckets

Every row is in exactly one of the Scoring filter's three buckets, read off the category the row shows:

The press kit is left out of all three, on purpose. A press kit that fills itself in from the record would otherwise put every imported film in Partly scored the day it arrived. So a film can read All scores in while its press-kit card is still to be filed — and the season's When every submission is approved release, which does wait for that card, can still be waiting on it. The whole rule for when a film is finished is on When a film is fully judged.

The same three buckets are the Season overview's Not started, In judging and Fully judged, and the Judging progress column of the submissions export.

Overall is points banked, not a forecast

Overall is what the approved work has actually earned so far. It is not a prediction of where the film will finish, and it is not the score of the judges who have filed scaled up to a full panel. Work that nobody has done holds points nobody has banked.

That has one consequence worth carrying around:

A partly judged film reads low, and it is meant to. On a season that divides its 100 as 50 Creative / 30 Technical / 20 Press kit, a film with one of three judges in who scored it 80 out of 100 shows 13 — a third of the Creative share. Not 40. When the other two judges file at the same standard it reaches 40, and the technical and press-kit reviews take it the rest of the way.

So filter to complete films before you rank anything. Sorting by Overall now rewards being finished as much as being good: an average film every judge has scored outranks an excellent one waiting on two more cards. Set the Scoring filter to All scores in before you read the list as a ranking, and use the Scores in column to see how far along everything else is.

How the four figures fit together

Every category a submission can be scored in is scored out of 100, whatever scorecards it carries. The season decides how that 100 is divided between the three kinds of scorecard — section weights, set on Settings → Judging and starting at 60 Creative / 20 Technical / 20 Press kit. Each section earns its share of the 100 in proportion to what was marked on its own scorecard: a technical card worth 20 points on which a reviewer passed 15 earns three quarters of the Technical share.

Four things follow, and they are what the columns are showing you:

• The three section figures always add up to Overall. They are whole numbers, apportioned so that they do.
• A category that does not use a section is scored over the ones it does. A category with no press kit, on a 60/20/20 season, is scored Creative 75 and Technical 25 — and still out of 100. The exact split for one category is written out on the detail panel's Scoring tab.
• The Creative share is divided equally among the judges the season expects per category. On a panel of three, each judge's scorecard can bank at most a third of it; two judges in means at most two thirds is on the board, and the last third arrives with the last card. A season with no Judges per category set treats whatever has been filed as the whole panel, so one card there banks the whole share.
• Technical and the press kit are not divided. They are reviewed once for the whole submission, so their full share lands the moment that one review is approved.

A section the festival weighted 0 is collected but not scored: the scorecard is still filled in, the filmmaker still sees it, the category is still not complete without it — and it adds nothing to the score. If it is the first scorecard approved on a film, Overall reads 0, in red, until a weighted scorecard arrives. A category whose every section is weighted 0 has no score at all: Overall stays a dash, and its section cells read 0 as their scorecards are approved.

The number and the colour answer different questions

The figures are what has been banked. The colours are quality — how well the work that has come in was marked:

• A section's colour is that scorecard read against its own maximum. A technical card marked 18 of 20 is green whether the Technical share is worth 40 points of the 100 or 10. The Creative colour is the filed judges' average on their card, not their share of the section.
• Overall's colour is what has been banked against what could have been banked so far — not against the full 100. So the one-judge film above shows 13 in green: 13 of the 17 points that were available to it at that moment — exactly 80% before either figure is rounded.
• Green is 80% or better, light green from 70%, yellow from 50%, orange from 40%, red below 40% — each measured on the exact figures, before anything is rounded.

That pairing is deliberate. If the colour were taken against the full 100, the one-judge film above would be red, and every film would be marked down for each card still to come — which says something about how early it is rather than how good it is. Read the colour for quality and the number for progress — a small green number means "doing well, not finished".

Searching and filtering

The toolbar above the table:

• The search box matches the title or the submitter's name, and nothing else — searching "vega" finds the person, and does not sweep through synopses. It waits a moment after you stop typing before it runs.
• Category — tick as many categories as you like; a row matches if it competes in any of them. A submission in Drama and Experimental is found under either. The list is A to Z with its own search box, and a Clear categories button at the bottom once anything is ticked.
• Status — In Consideration, Selected, Not Selected.
• Scoring — All scores in, Partly scored, Not started. See The three Scoring buckets.
• Poster — Has poster, No poster. Whether an image is on the record, and nothing else: an imported submission with no poster is under No poster even though it is not marked incomplete for it. See Adding posters from the list. Filtering to No poster with Edit mode on is the quickest way through a season of imports — see Edit mode.
• Priority — Priority, Not priority. Whether the submission is marked Judge this first. It reads Any priority until you pick one. See Priority: judge this first.
• Judging — Ready, On hold. Whether judges are offered the film. It reads Any judging until you pick one. See Holding a submission out of judging.
• Press kit, Technical, Creative and Overall — four score ranges, the last rows of the Filters panel, each a slider with two handles. Each opens at its full range, which is no filter: unscored submissions still show. Drag a handle and let go, and the list keeps only the submissions whose figure in that column is scored and inside the range. Overall runs 0 to 100; Press kit, Technical and Creative run up to the weight your season gives that section, so Creative on a 60/20/20 season runs 0 to 60. The top handle at its end means "and up": a category without one of the sections can score above that weight in the others, and those films are not cut off. A range you set shows beside Filters as a chip — "Overall: 50–100", or "Creative: 30 and up" — with a ✕ that removes it (not on a phone, where the number on Filters says it instead). It counts toward that number, and Clear filters removes it too, as does dragging both handles back to the ends. A section no category in the season scores has no slider. Like every filter, the ranges are kept in the address, so they survive a reload and coming back from a scorecard.
• Changed on FilmFreeway (3) — on a festival connected to FilmFreeway, a chip that appears beside the filters only while at least one film on the list carries a FilmFreeway notice: withdrawn on FilmFreeway but left to you (a film the sync withdrew itself is no longer on the list), disqualified or moved out of a category on FilmFreeway, or no longer on FilmFreeway at all. The number is how many films, counted across the whole season like every other filter. Press it and the list narrows to those films, with the chip tinted indigo and an amber line under the toolbar: "These films changed on FilmFreeway after they were imported: withdrawn, disqualified, moved out of a category or removed. Open each one to see what changed and update it here if you need to. Its notice clears at the next sync, or anyone who can edit Settings can dismiss it." Press the chip again, or Clear filters, to put the list back. It stays in the toolbar when the other filters collapse into Filters, and it stays on screen while it is pressed even after the last notice has been dealt with, so the way back out is always there. What each notice means, and what to do about it, is on FilmFreeway notices.
• From FilmFreeway: Drama (12) — an indigo chip that appears only when you arrive from the FilmFreeway tab in Settings, by the line under one of its categories — "12 films already here stay in Drama Film." The list narrows to the films that FilmFreeway category brought into the season, so you can move them with Edit categories after changing where that category goes. The name is FilmFreeway's own, and the number is how many of those films are in the season, whatever else is filtered. There is nothing to pick: its ✕ takes the narrowing away, and so does Clear filters. See Connecting FilmFreeway.
• No category — an indigo chip that appears when you arrive from the Entries without a category row on the Overview. The list narrows to the submissions attached to no category at all — see Submissions with no category. There is nothing to pick, and the Category filter has no such option: the chip is the only place the narrowing shows, and the Category filter reads as if nothing were ticked. Its ✕ takes the narrowing away, and so does Clear filters. Ticking a category while it is on replaces it — the list switches to that category rather than finding nothing. The chip stays in the toolbar when the other filters collapse into Filters.

Filters combine the way you would expect: any of the options ticked within one filter, all of the filters together. A Clear filters link appears beside them as soon as a search or any filter is set, and it clears the search and every filter at once.

A submission with no category is left out whenever the Category filter is on, because it is in none of the categories you ticked.

Changing a search or a filter clears any rows you had ticked, and takes you back to the first page of results. Sorting, loading more rows and changing the rows-per-page all keep your selection.

Reading the numbers beside each option

All six filters count the same way: across the whole season, never cross-filtered. 14 stays 14 whatever else is ticked, and filtering to Selected does not make the other two status counts drop to zero.

That is deliberate. A count beside an option you have not picked is there to tell you what you would get if you picked it — if it moved as you filtered, it would be measuring your own filter back at you, and an option showing 0 would look like one worth avoiding.

The category counts can add up to more than the season holds, and that is correct. A submission in Drama and Experimental really is one of Drama's entrants and one of Experimental's, so both count it. 22 + 14 + 9 need not come to 36. The footer's total is still the number of submissions.

The counts describe the visible set, so withdrawn and disqualified submissions are absent from them, exactly as they are absent from the list.

Sorting

Every column heading is a sort button except Flag and Judging — and the columns Edit mode adds, which hold fields to fill in rather than figures to rank. Click once to sort by that column, click again to reverse it. Overall, Scores in and Submitted open with the useful end first — highest, then newest. Technical, Marketing and Creative open low first, so click a second time for the strongest section scores. Length keeps films and screenplays in separate groups and sorts within each: minutes and pages are not comparable numbers.

Sorting by Overall sorts by points banked, so a finished film outranks a better one that is still being judged. That is the right order for "where does the season stand" and the wrong one for "which is the best film" — narrow to All scores in first when you mean the second. See Overall is points banked, not a forecast.

Category sorts on the first category alphabetically — the one the pill actually shows. A submission in Experimental Film and Drama Film sorts under D, and its other categories do not move it. A submission with no category sorts as though its name were blank.

Flag is not sortable. Your flags are a private working mark rather than a property of the submission, and the column is there to be set and read rather than ordered by. Judging has no sort either — with two values, the Judging filter is how you gather the held rows — and Priority has no column and no sort: the Priority filter is how you gather the marked rows.

Title breaks every tie, always A to Z. That matters most before anything has been approved: the list arrives sorted by Overall, high to low, and while every row still scores the same nothing, what you actually see is the list in alphabetical order. It stops looking alphabetical as approvals land.

Rows with no score sort to the bottom under any of the four score sorts, whichever direction you click — so an unscored row never leads the list.

The footer names the sort in words: "Showing 36 of 36 submissions, sorted by overall score."

The table never restacks. However narrow the window, the rows stay rows: the table scrolls sideways inside its card, with the column headings frozen along the top and the row number and Submission cells frozen to the left, so you can always see which row you are reading across. On a window 1340 pixels wide or narrower — which includes many laptop screens — the six filters collapse into a single Filters button that opens them in a panel.

How many rows you see

The footer holds a Rows picker — 25, 50 or 100, starting at 50 — and FilmScorecard remembers your choice in this browser, including when you arrive from the navigation link with no address to read it from.

Load 50 more below the table brings in the next batch when there are more rows to show; the button always names your rows-per-page setting rather than the number actually left. It disappears when everything matching is loaded.

The footer line changes shape depending on whether anything is narrowing the view:

• Nothing narrowing: "Showing 36 of 36 submissions, sorted by overall score."
• Something narrowing: "Showing 12 of 12 loaded submissions, filters applied, sorted by title." — with "screenplays hidden" and "below the cut hidden" added when the program planner is doing either.

The second form counts against what is loaded, not against the season. This matters for the planner and for select-all, which both work on the loaded rows and nothing beyond them.

Selecting rows and changing status in bulk

Tick any row and a bar appears at the bottom of the screen reading "6 submissions selected", with:

• Clear selection
• Email submission links — only for the people who can open the season's Settings; see Emailing submission-page links. It is the only button on this bar that asks you to confirm.
• Hold and Ready — put every ticked film On hold, or make every one of them Ready again. See Holding a submission out of judging.
• Return to consideration
• Mark as Not Selected
• Mark 6 as Selected — the primary button, which names the real number.

A bulk status move applies the moment you click it, with no confirmation step: every ticked row's Status cell changes at once, and then your selection clears. The Status column is the confirmation. If the move is refused, the rows go back to the status they had, your ticks are still there, and a message appears at the bottom of the screen saying why. Hold and Ready work the same way, on the Judging column.

The checkbox in the heading row selects every row currently loaded. Once anything is selected it shows a dash, and pressing it again clears the selection. There is no "select all 612" — if you want the whole season selected, load the whole season first.

The bulk bar changes status, puts films on hold or makes them Ready, sends submission links and releases scorecards — and nothing else. There is no bulk way to change categories, no bulk way to mark or clear Priority, and no bulk way to fill in scorecards: all three are done one submission at a time.

Actions → Release scorecards releases every ticked film's scorecard at once, for the people who can approve scorecards. It confirms first — "Release 6 selected scorecards?" — with Email each submitter their scorecard link and code ticked. A film with no approved scorecard yet is not released, and the dialog stays open to say how many were not. On a season FilmScorecard brought in for you from Film Festival Circuit, while your organization has no mailing address, the confirm carries an amber line as long as the email is ticked:

Your organization has no mailing address, so submitters who haven't unlocked their scorecard won't get this email. Add one in Organization settings → Organization profile first.

It warns and nothing more: the release still goes ahead when you press it. The single-film confirm on the detail panel says the same — see Releasing one submission's scorecard.

Emailing submission-page links

Email submission links emails each selected submitter a private link to their own submission, where they can correct their tagline, synopsis, credits, links and poster and ask the judges two questions of their own, until judging closes. It confirms first:

Email submission page links to 6 submissions?

Each submitter gets a link to their submission page by email. Submissions whose page is closed are skipped, and so, once judging is under way, are those already being scored or missing nothing.

Send links Cancel

Then a message at the bottom of the screen — "Submission links queued for 6 submissions." — and your selection clears.

Eight things before you press it:

• Only the people who can open the season's Settings have the button — owners, org admins and festival admins, or anybody else given Edit festival settings and team on Festival access with a role that can change the season. Anybody else's bulk bar has no Email submission links at all. This is new — it used to be on everybody's bar and work for anybody who could open the season. If your access changes while the list is open, the button stays until you reload, and Send links is then answered "You do not have permission to do that." inside the dialog, with nothing sent.
• It sends email to people outside your organization. That is why it confirms and the status moves do not.
• It reuses the link and access code each submitter already has. Their button in an older email, their code, and any browser they are already reading in all go on working; the send only extends how long they last — unless their link has reached its 90-day limit, when this email brings a new one. See One link and one code at a time.
• It sends the same email the season sends on its own, and counts as that submitter's invitation: somebody reached this way for the first time is not emailed again by the season's automatic send or by Send to N now. It still mails submitters who have been invited already, every time you press it. See Inviting submitters.
• Once judging is under way it skips two kinds of submission: one a judge has already filed a creative scorecard on, and one with nothing missing that counts toward its score. The season's automatic send and Send to N now do not — they email both. To email one of them anyway, use the Email button on that submission's Submission link card — see The Settings tab.
• The count in the message is what you selected, not what went out. Withdrawn submissions, any whose season or scorecard has been released, and the two kinds above are skipped inside the send.
• Each submission's Audit tab shows what this send did for it — Sent, Failed, or Not sent with the reason, and then whether it was delivered or bounced. See Emails on the Audit tab. There is no progress card and no season-wide list; the Sent so far count on Settings → Emails ("112 of 140 submissions have been sent it") is season-wide and moves only for first-time sends.
• Most seasons do not need it for the first send. A season set to send it As each one arrives emails each new submission within minutes of its arrival, once it is in a category, and Send to N now on Settings → Emails reaches every submission in a category that has never had it; this button is for resends, reminders and a handful of people.

The whole of it — what a submitter can change, the four conditions that keep a page open, and the one line that records their edit — is Letting submitters fix their own details.

The row menu

The three-dot menu at the end of a row opens with the submission's title and a monospace line beneath it — PCFF24-142, Film, 14:02 — so you can be sure which row you are acting on. It offers:

• View submission — the same as clicking the title.
• Two status moves, whichever two are valid from where the row is now. From In Consideration: Mark as Selected and Mark as Not Selected. From Selected: Reopen, return to consideration and Change to Not Selected. From Not Selected: Reopen, return to consideration and Change to Selected. These apply immediately — one column, reversible from the same menu, so there is no dialog in the way. The Status cell changes as you press, the row goes quiet for the moment the change takes to save, and if it is refused the cell goes back to what it was with a message at the bottom of the screen.
• Edit categories — always opens a dialog; nothing is written from the menu. See Editing a submission's categories.
• Fill out a scorecard — opens a dialog listing every scorecard this submission can be scored against and which of them are still open. Nothing is written from the menu, and the item is only there if you can approve scorecards. It is on every row, whatever has already been filled in — a row On hold included. See Filling out a scorecard yourself.
• Withdraw from season, in amber at the bottom, with a line saying what it will cost — always confirms first.

The whole menu is greyed out while the row is saving something — a status move, a priority change, a hold, or a poster still uploading — and comes back when it settles.

There is no "email this one submitter" here. The one-submission send is the Email button on the Submission link card, on the detail panel's Settings tab, beside Copy link — see Handing over the link. Unlike the bulk bar, it sends even to a submission judges are already scoring or one with nothing missing.

And there is no "move" here. Moving a submission to another season or festival is a card on the detail panel's Settings tab, drawn for owners, org admins and festival admins only — see Moving a submission to another festival.

Nor is there a Priority item, or a Hold item. Priority is set and cleared on the detail panel's Settings tab and nowhere else — see Priority: judge this first. A hold is set there too, or for many rows at once from the bulk bar — see Holding a submission out of judging.

Adding posters from the list

A FilmFreeway export carries no poster, so every imported row starts without one. (A festival connected to FilmFreeway gets the poster downloaded into an empty slot by the sync, so those films may already have one — see Connecting FilmFreeway.) Opening each submission to reach its Poster card is slow across a whole season. You can add a poster without opening anything: drag an image file from your desktop and drop it on the submission's row.

1. Set the Poster filter to No poster, so the list is only the rows that need one.

2. Drag the image file over the row. The row turns indigo while the file is over it, however far sideways the table is scrolled — that is the row that will take the file. Nothing else on the screen lights up.

3. Let go. The row dims while the poster is prepared and uploaded, then a message appears at the bottom of the screen:

   Poster added to The Lighthouse Keeper.

   — or "Poster replaced on The Lighthouse Keeper." when the row already had one. It names the film so you can see at once that you dropped on the right row, and it clears itself after a few seconds.

4. Under the No poster filter the row then leaves the list by itself, because it no longer matches, and the next row moves up into its place. The message is the record of what happened.

Or use the Poster column. Switch Edit mode on in the toolbar and every row gains a Poster cell — the thumbnail, or a dashed + box — as long as Poster is one of your Edit-mode columns, which it is unless you have taken it off. Either one is a button: it opens your computer's file chooser and does exactly the same thing with the file you pick. It is the route for a keyboard, or for a file you cannot drag onto the window. Pressing Edit mode again puts the columns away. See Edit mode.

Dropping a file on a row works whether Edit mode is on or off.

What the file may be

One file, a PNG, JPEG or WebP image, up to 10 MB. Those are checked on the file you drop, before anything is sent:

• Two or more files at once are refused — "Drop one poster at a time." — and nothing is uploaded, not even the first of them.
• Anything that is not one of the three image types — a PDF, a TIFF, an HEIC photo straight from a phone — is refused with "Posters must be a PNG, JPEG or WebP image."
• A file over 10 MB, or an empty one, is refused with "That poster is over 10 MB. Upload a smaller file."

Each of those is a red message at the bottom of the screen that stays until you dismiss it, and the row is left exactly as it was.

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 and what judges see; the file on your desktop is not touched. If your browser cannot prepare an image, the file is sent exactly as you dropped it. See The tagline, the statement and the poster.

What a drop does, and does not do

• Dropping on a row that already has a poster replaces it, with no confirmation. The old image is gone and there is no undo. The message says "replaced" rather than "added" precisely so that a drop on the wrong row is noticed at once — check the lit row before you let go.
• Only a file drag lights a row. Dragging text, a link or anything from the page itself does nothing to it.
• A row uploads one file at a time; different rows upload at once. A row that is dimmed because its poster is still uploading ignores a second drop, and its menu is greyed out. Drop on the next row while the last one is still going, and each settles on its own. When two finish close together, only the later message stays on screen.
• A drop that misses a row does nothing. Letting go over the column headings, the toolbar, the footer, the gap between rows or an empty list drops nothing — the browser does not open the image in your tab, and you do not lose your place.
• The detail panel keeps up. If the panel is open on the row you drop on, its Poster card shows the new image without your closing anything, and the panel's footer reads "Saved just now by your name".
• A first poster is on the submission's Audit tab as an edit to Poster, from Empty to New poster, just as one uploaded from the panel is; a replacement is not recorded there at all — see What is recorded, and what is not.
• A submission its filmmaker has saved to their own account takes a file like any other. Saving it there changes nothing you can do to the record — see When a filmmaker saves a submission to their account.

If the upload fails — a connection that dropped, or the file could not be stored — the message is "The poster could not be uploaded. Try again." The row brightens again and keeps whatever poster it had; drop the file again.

Edit mode

Edit mode turns the list into a form you work straight down. An import arrives short of taglines, synopses, screener links and posters, and opening each submission to fill in one field is slow across a whole season. With Edit mode on, the fields you choose sit in columns beside each title, and you fill them in where they are.

1. Press Edit mode in the toolbar, beside Import submissions. It stays tinted while it is on. (On a window 640 pixels wide or narrower it is a pencil icon.)
2. The chosen columns appear straight after the Submission column, in place of the list's own — Category, Status, the scores, Submitted, Flag and the row menu step aside until you turn it off. A Columns button with their count appears beside Edit mode. With no column chosen, the list's own columns stay where they are.
3. Fill in the cells — see Editing a cell.
4. Press Edit mode again to put the columns away and bring the list's back.

Edit mode itself is not remembered. Reload the page, or come back to it later, and it is off; the columns you chose are remembered. Everything else about the list — search, filters, sort, ticked rows — works as usual while it is on (only the Submission heading sorts, since the others are put away), and the table still scrolls sideways with the Submission column pinned.

In Edit mode the Submission column stops at 360 pixels wide. With only a column or two chosen, the spare room sits empty after the last one rather than stretching the titles across the screen.

Choosing the columns

Columns opens a tick list of all 22 fields Edit mode can show. Tick or untick as many as you like; the list stays open while you do, and the table follows at once. Type in Search columns at the top to narrow the list by name — "No columns match "…"." when nothing does; while you search, the rows cannot be dragged, and closing the list clears the search. Select all and Clear all tick or untick every column in one go.

Arrange the columns your way. The table shows the columns in the order the list has them, and the order is yours:

• To move a column, drag the dotted grip at the left of its row in the list up or down — or focus the row and press Alt (Option or Command on a Mac) with the up or down arrow to move it one place at a time.
• To make a column wider or narrower, drag the right edge of its heading in the table — a thin rule shows there when you point at the heading. Focus the edge with Tab and use the left and right arrows to do it from the keyboard, 16 pixels a press; double-click the edge to put that one column back. A column can be from 96 to 720 pixels wide. The Poster column keeps its size.
• Reset layout, at the top of the list, puts back the standard order and every standard width. Which columns are ticked stays as it is.

Like the columns you tick, your order and widths are remembered in this browser, for you. A thin line runs down between the columns in Edit mode so you can see where each one starts.

You start with six: Poster, Runtime/Pages, Tagline, Synopsis, Genres and Screener link.

• The table's order is always the list's order, whatever order you ticked them in — and the list's order is the one you arranged, so a colleague who chose the same columns may see them in another order.
• Your choice is remembered for you, in this browser — a colleague using the same computer keeps their own. If your browser will not let the page remember anything, Edit mode opens on the six, in the standard order and widths, every time.
• Untick everything and the list's own columns come back — Category, Status, the scores and the rest — while Edit mode stays on, until you tick some again.
• No Edit-mode column sorts. They hold fields to fill in, not figures to rank.

The personal and payment fields are not offered — the submitter's name, email, phone, address, birthdate and gender, and the entry fee, discount and tracking number. Those stay on the submission's Information tab.

Editing a cell

A short field is a box in its cell. Click into it and type.

• Enter, or clicking away, saves it. Escape puts back what was there and saves nothing.
• The box dims while it saves, and cannot be typed in until the save has finished.
• Each cell saves on its own, the moment you leave it — there is no Save button for the row and nothing waits to be saved together.
• A refused save puts the old value back and shows why in a red message at the bottom of the screen — the same sentence the Information tab would give. "Enter minutes and seconds, for example 12:40." on a runtime, "Enter a whole number of pages." on a screenplay, "Enter a four digit year." on a year, "Title is required." on an emptied title.

Tagline, Synopsis, Statement, Credits, Original synopsis, Tech specs and Lyrics open a pop-out, because a cell has no room for them. Each cell shows the text in a short box that scrolls — or a dash when it is empty — and pressing the box opens the field whole, over the list, headed with the field's name and the film's title:

1. Change the text. Save wakes up once something has changed.
2. Press Save. The pop-out closes and "Saved." appears at the bottom of the screen.
3. Cancel — or Escape — closes it and saves nothing.

Tech specs opens all nine of the Technical specs fields — Shooting format, Aspect ratio, Film color, Camera, Lens, Focal length, Shutter speed, Aperture and ISO / film — and saves only the ones you changed. Its cell lists the filled ones as "Camera · ARRI Alexa Mini". Credits works the same way with its five boxes — Directors, Writers, Producers, Key cast and Other credits — its cell reading "Directors · Ana Ruiz". Statement is headed just Statement, whether the submission is a film or a screenplay.

Category and Status are not boxes. Category shows the row's category pills; pressing them opens Edit categories, the row menu's dialog — see Editing a submission's categories. Status shows the row's status pill; pressing it lists In Consideration, Selected and Not Selected, and picking one makes the same move as the bulk bar's status buttons, for this one row — the pill changes at once, and a refused move puts it back with the reason at the bottom of the screen. Both are greyed out while a change to that row is still saving.

A refused pop-out stays open with your text in it: the reason is beside Save, and under the field it belongs to, so you can correct it and save again.

A few cells have nothing to edit:

• A submission with no cut on record has nothing for a runtime, a page count, a screener link or a password to belong to, so those boxes are greyed out — as they are on the Information tab.
• A screenplay with a PDF stored has no password. The password box is greyed out until the screenplay goes back to a link.
• A screenplay's Trailer cell is a dash, not a box, unless a press kit on one of its categories scores the trailer, or a trailer is already saved on it — the same rule as the Links card on the Information tab. A film's Trailer cell is always a box.

The columns load when you turn Edit mode on. Most of them are not part of the list itself, so each cell shows a grey bar until its value arrives — Poster, Title, Category and Status are the list's own and show at once. If they cannot be loaded, a red strip above the table reads "The edit columns could not be loaded." with Try again, and the cells waiting on them show dashes.

What an Edit-mode save does

It is the same edit as the Information tab's, one field at a time — except Category and Status, which are the Edit categories dialog and a bulk-bar status move for one row, with those rules.

• Who can make it: the same people who can save the Information tab. The button is on everyone's toolbar; a save somebody may not make is refused, and the cell goes back.
• It is checked by the same rules, and refused in the same words.
• It is on the submission's Audit tab exactly as the same edit made on the Information tab would be: under your name, with what each field was and is now. Cell edits you make to one submission ten minutes apart or less fold into one entry — see What is recorded, and what is not. As on the Information tab, the runtime or page count, the screener link, the password and a screenplay's PDF are not recorded there.
• Only that one field is written. A colleague's change to another field of the same submission is not undone by yours. If you both change the same field, the later save wins — for that field alone.
• A colleague's change shows in the cell when the list next refreshes itself — unless you have already started typing in that box, in which case what you typed stays until you save it or press Escape.
• Saving a screener link on a screenplay that holds a PDF replaces the PDF, exactly as it does on the Information tab — see A screenplay as a PDF.
• After judging closes, the fields still save — the score does not move. On a season set to Keep its score as judged, an edit after judging has closed changes the field and leaves the press kit's points where they stood. See Freezing the press kit when judging closes.
• An open submission keeps up. If the same submission is open, it shows the new value without your closing anything.

Screenplay PDFs in Edit mode

On a screenplay row, the Screener link cell takes a PDF as well as a link — the same upload as on the submission's Information tab; see A screenplay as a PDF. A judge is only ever given one copy to read, so the link and the PDF share one cell.

• With no PDF stored, type or paste the link into the box as on any row, or press the small upload button beside it and pick a PDF. You can also drag a PDF from your computer and drop it anywhere on the cell, which lights up as you hold it there.
• With a PDF stored, the link box is replaced by Open PDF ↗, which opens the file in a new tab, and the upload button beside it replaces the file. To go back to a link, use the Information tab.
• One PDF, up to 25 MB. A file that is not a PDF, or is larger, is refused in a red message at the bottom of the screen before anything is sent: "Screenplay files must be a PDF." or "That PDF is over 25 MB. Upload a smaller file." An upload that breaks reads "The PDF could not be uploaded. Try again.", and nothing is recorded.
• Uploading clears that screenplay's link and password. A judge is only ever given one copy to read.
• A film's cell is just the link box, and a screenplay with no cut on record has no upload button.

Editing a submission's categories

Edit categories — in the row menu, and at the foot of the Information tab of the detail panel — opens a dialog headed "Edit categories for Title" over the sentence that matters: "This submission is scored in every category it is attached to, against that category's own scorecards."

Under it is a checkbox list of categories, A to Z, already ticked for the categories this submission competes in. Tick to add, untick to remove, then Save categories. Each row is the category's name over a monospace line with its permanent short id, its length when it has one, and its type — CAT-1008, 31–120 min, Film — the same line the season's Categories tab prints. There is no submission count beside a row; those are in the toolbar's Category filter.

The list is your organization's category library, not only what the season is running. Two kinds of row sit in it, in one alphabet:

• Every category attached to this season, whether or not anything competes in it yet — so a category with no submissions, which the toolbar's Category filter leaves out, is here. A season category whose library record has since been deleted is here too, reading Not in the library where its monospace line would be, and it can be kept or unticked like any other.
• Every active category in the library that this season is not yet running — offered only to owners and org admins of the organization, the same people who can attach a category on the season's Categories tab. Anyone else sees the season's own categories and nothing more. Archived library categories are offered to nobody.

Ticking a library category the season lacks attaches it to the season when you save, then to the submission. It arrives on the season exactly as if you had used Attach categories on the Categories tab: at the library's default judge pay — which may itself be $0.00 — and recorded as a category this festival offers. From then on it is a row on that tab like any other, and that tab is where its pay is set; set it before judging opens. Unticking a category here only takes it off this submission, never off the season — detaching from the season is Categories-tab work, and a category with submissions cannot be detached at all.

Five things to know:

• At least one category, always. Untick everything and Save categories goes dim, with "A submission has to compete in at least one category." underneath it. The refusal is enforced again when you save, so there is no way around it.
• Anything you are removing is named in amber before you save — "Drama Film will be removed. This submission stops competing in it." Several are all named: "Drama Film and Experimental Film will be removed. This submission stops competing in them." Under it, one more amber line for each removed category that leaves something behind — see What removing a category leaves behind.
• Removing is never refused, and takes effect at once. Not for a scorecard a judge has started or filed under the category, and not for a scorecard the filmmaker has bought or been comped. The submission stops competing in that category, stops being counted in it, leaves that category's own award — its pool, and any standing, win or mention it held there — and stops being eligible for library awards that only accept it. The whole save happens or none of it does: a failure leaves the submission's categories exactly as they were.
• Saving without changing anything is safe and writes nothing.
• There is a search box above the list, the same one the Category filter in the toolbar carries — and here it matches the monospace line as well as the name, so typing short finds Documentary Short, screenplay narrows the list to the screenplay categories, and CAT-1008 finds the row that wears it. Searching changes what you can see and nothing else: a category you have already ticked stays ticked, and is still saved, while a search is hiding it. Nothing matching says so — "No category matches "…"." — and clearing the box brings the whole list back.

Adding a category during judging puts the film back in front of judges. Every category a submission competes in needs its own full panel of creative scorecards, so a new one opens a fresh set of places, and the judges who can score that category start being offered the film again — unless the film is On hold. See How the judging queue works.

A season with no categories, when there is nothing to offer from the library either, says so instead of showing an empty list: "This season has no categories yet. Add one to the season before attaching submissions to it." An owner or org admin is shown the library's categories there instead, and ticking one is how the season gets its first.

What a submission's categories decide. Which scorecards it is judged against in each of them — and therefore which of the three sections its 100 points are split across there, since a category is scored only on the sections it actually uses. Both are on the Scoring tab of the detail panel. Its categories also decide which awards it is in. Every category is itself an award — a submission is in that category award's pool exactly while it competes in the category, and has a position in it once it is scored; see A category award's pool. A library award accepts a submission when any one of its categories is eligible for that award, and the submission enters that award's pool once however many of them qualify — see Award pools.

And they decide which press kit its submitter is shown. A submission's press-kit checklist, on the page the submitter edits, comes from the categories it competes in; changing the set changes the card they see on their next load.

They also decide what a filmmaker is charged for their scorecard, which is one category at a time — see Selling scorecard access.

If a category was removed from the season while your dialog was open — or a library category you ticked was archived or deleted in the meantime — the save is refused with "That category is no longer in this season. Refresh the page and try again." and nothing changes. If the season already holds a category under the same name as a library category you ticked — usually a leftover row from a deleted library record, the one reading Not in the library — the save is refused with "This season already has a category with that name. Rename it in the library first. (Name)". The dialog stays open on any failure, so you are never left believing something happened.

One partial outcome is possible. A library category can reach the season and the save then fail before it reaches the submission. The category is on the season from then on; the list refreshes behind the dialog, the row you ticked stays ticked, and pressing Save categories again finishes the job.

What removing a category leaves behind

The dialog says what stays and what goes, category by category, before you save. Under the "will be removed" line, each removed category that has something to name gets one amber line, built from up to three parts:

Drama Film: 2 judge scorecards stay with their judges; filed ones can still be approved and paid; the sold section stays on the buyer's page as it stands; its Winner result in this category is removed.

• "2 judge scorecards stay with their judges" — creative scorecards judges have started or filed under that category; "1 judge scorecard stays with its judge" for one. When any of them has been filed, the part goes on: "filed ones can still be approved and paid", or "filed, it can still be approved and paid".
• "the sold section stays on the buyer's page as it stands" — the filmmaker has unlocked that category's scorecard.
• "its Winner result in this category is removed" — or "its Finalist result", or "its mention in this category is removed": the result the film held in that category's award.

A removed category with none of the three gets no line of its own. The lines are read when the dialog opens. If that read fails, the dialog simply draws none of them, and the save works exactly the same.

What each of those means once you have saved:

• Judges' scorecards under the category are kept, not deleted. A filed one stays in the Review Queue, labelled "Drama Film (removed)", and can still be approved; a judge who was part-way through one can still finish and file it while it is theirs. Either way the judge is paid for it exactly as before, at the rate of the category it was started under. None of them counts toward the film any more — not its score on this list, its Scores in ticks, its panel, its Scoring tab, or what its filmmaker reads.
• A scorecard your own staff filed under the category stays too, and can still be approved, but can no longer be edited — see A scorecard on a removed category.
• A section the filmmaker unlocked stays on their scorecard page, under "Drama Film (removed)", exactly as it stood at the moment you saved, and is never rescored. A payment for it already under way still goes through. A removed category nobody unlocked is simply gone from their page, and is never offered for sale. See If a category was removed from your submission.
• A judge who scored the film in the removed category can be offered it again, for one of its remaining categories — see How the judging queue works.

Ticking it again later starts the category afresh. The film goes back into the category's pool as a fresh entrant, In consideration, and is judged there from scratch: the earlier scorecards do not come back into it, and on the filmmaker's page it is a new, locked section, sold separately, beside the removed one they kept.

Submissions with no category

You cannot untick your way to zero, but a submission can still end up with no category — most plausibly when two people each remove a different one at the same moment, neither of them seeing the other's change. Nothing breaks: the Category cell reads No category, the detail panel says the submission is not attached to a category yet, it is left out whenever a category filter is on, and it cannot be judged against anything.

To find them, open the Entries without a category row on the Overview. It brings you here with the list narrowed to exactly these submissions and a No category chip in the toolbar — see Searching and filtering.

Open Edit categories on it, tick one and save. It goes back to a normal row and leaves the narrowed list.

Its first category is also what sends its submitter their submission page link, on a season set to send it As each one arrives: a submission whose submitter has never had the email is sent it within minutes of your save — unless it arrived before the season made that choice, which leaves it to Send to N now; see Who gets one. While it has none, Settings → Emails counts it under Waiting for a category, and that line's link brings you here with the same No category chip. A season set to Only when I click Send now, or one nobody has decided for, sends nothing on a save.

Moving a submission to another festival

A submission that landed in the wrong place can be moved to another season — next year's season of this festival, or a season of another festival your organization runs — without importing it again. It is the same submission after the move: the same SUB- number, the same tracking number, the same screener, poster, press kit, tagline and statement, the same Audit history, and every submission link and access code the filmmaker has already been sent keeps working. What cannot follow a film into a different season is deleted, and the dialog names each of those things, in numbers, before you confirm.

Move is on the detail panel only. Open the submission, choose the Settings tab, and the Move to another festival row sits directly above Withdraw, with one button: Move. There is no Move item in the row menu and no bulk move.

Who has the button

The Move card is drawn for the people who can open the season's Settings screen: the organization's owners and org admins, and the festival admins of this festival — plus anyone else whose festival access has Edit festival settings and team ticked, provided they can change the season at all. Coordinators, programmers and viewers do not see the card; the rest of the Settings tab is exactly as it always was for them, Withdraw included.

Two things the card does not depend on:

• Whether its filmmaker has saved it to their own account. A move works the same either way, and the entry stays in the filmmaker's account, reading its new festival and season — see What the filmmaker sees afterwards.
• Neither results nor judge pay stop a move. A scorecard you have already paid a judge for, a scorecard that has been released or shared, an award the film has won — each has a defined outcome, listed below and printed in the dialog.

Money does stop one. A submission whose scorecard a filmmaker has unlocked — bought, comped or freely unlocked — stays in its season; see A sold scorecard does not move. The only other move that cannot happen is into a season that already holds this submission.

The panel opened from an award pool is read-only, and its Settings tab holds the submission's addresses only — there is no Move card there.

A sold scorecard does not move

Once any of a submission's categories has been unlocked, the submission stays where it is. The Move card is still there and the button still opens, but the dialog has nothing to offer: in place of the season picker, the category list and the consequence lines, one sentence —

This submission's scorecard has been purchased, so it cannot be moved.

— and Move stays dim. There is nothing to choose and nothing to press through.

• Every kind of unlock counts, and so does a refunded one: a purchase, a comp you granted, a free unlock on a $0 season, and a purchase that has since been refunded in full. A receipt names the season it was issued in, and nothing on your screens can re-key one.
• There is no way round it, and nothing you can do first. A refund does not clear it — it marks the purchase refunded and leaves the record — and neither does comping the rest of the categories.
• The same sentence answers a stale tab. If a filmmaker buys their scorecard while your dialog is open, pressing Move is refused with the same words and nothing is moved.
• The film can still be withdrawn, which is the other way to take it out of a season's judging — see Withdrawing a submission.

Whether one submission has been unlocked is the line under the release line in the Scorecard link card on the same Settings tab, for anybody with View revenue and payouts — see Whether one submission has been unlocked.

The dialog

The button opens a dialog headed "Move Title to another festival?". It asks for what it needs the moment it opens — which seasons you may move this submission to, and what the move would cost this film — so for a moment its controls are greyed. If that read fails, the dialog says "The seasons could not be loaded." with a Try again button, and Move stays dim until it succeeds. If the submission has left the season in the meantime, it reads "This submission is no longer on the list."

If its scorecard has been unlocked, that read is also what tells the dialog so, and what it draws instead of everything below — see A sold scorecard does not move.

Otherwise, top to bottom:

1. Move to — a drop-down of every season this submission may go to, grouped under each festival's name, each reading "Festival — Season label Year". It opens on Choose a season. See Which seasons are offered.
2. Categories in that season — appears once a season is chosen: a checkbox list of that season's categories, some of them already ticked. See Choosing its categories.
3. The consequence lines — what the move deletes, keeps, removes and un-releases, in numbers. See What the dialog says it will do.
4. Move and Cancel. Move is dim until a season is chosen and at least one category is ticked, and dims again while the move runs.

Nothing is written until you press Move, and the dialog waits for the answer: a refusal is shown inside the dialog, which stays open, and the submission is exactly where it was.

Which seasons are offered

Every season in your organization that meets all five of these:

• Not this season.
• A draft or an active season. A completed or archived season is not offered.
• Its scorecards have not been released. Once a season has released, it takes no new arrivals.
• It does not already hold this submission — neither this same record nor an import carrying the same FilmFreeway Submission ID.
• You can open it. A season you have no access to is not listed, and the move is refused if you cannot change the season you chose.

The list is grouped by festival, oldest festival first, with each festival's newest season first. Other seasons of this festival sit in the same list as every other festival's — a season is a season, and moving a film to next year's season is the same move as moving it to another festival.

If nothing qualifies, the dialog says "There is no other season to move this to." in place of the two controls, and Move is not offered.

If the season you chose stops qualifying between your opening the dialog and pressing Move — it released its scorecards, was completed or archived, or a colleague moved this same film into it first — the move is refused with "That season isn't available." or "Already entered in that season.", and the dialog stays open for you to choose another. The list you are looking at was read when the dialog opened; close it and open it again to re-read.

Choosing its categories

The list is the chosen season's own categories, A to Z — not your organization's library, and not this season's. Rows are pre-ticked where a category in that season is the same library category as one this submission competes in now. The match is on the category itself, not on its name: a category the other season renamed still matches, and two categories that merely share a name do not. Change the set freely — tick, untick, add — before you press Move.

• At least one category, always. Untick everything and Move goes dim, with "A submission has to compete in at least one category." under the list.
• A season with no categories yet cannot take the film: the list is replaced by "That season has no categories yet." and Move stays dim. Attach a category on that season's Categories tab first, then open this dialog again.
• A category removed from that season while your dialog was open refuses the move with "That category is no longer in that season. Refresh the page and try again.", pinned under the list.

Leaving the pre-ticked categories in place is what keeps a carried technical or press-kit scorecard counting — see Which scorecards travel, and which count.

What the dialog says it will do

Under the category list, the dialog prints only the lines that apply to this submission, in this order, each with its real number:

Deletes 3 creative scorecards.

Deletes 1 technical or marketing scorecard filed by judges.

2 judges' pay for this film goes with them. 1 of the deleted scorecards has already been paid; the payment record stays.

Keeps 1 technical or marketing scorecard filed by staff.

Removes it from 2 award pools, including 1 it won.

Un-releases its scorecard.

Revokes its share card.

When none of them applies — nothing filed, no pools, nothing released — the one line is "Nothing has been scored yet." The numbers are whole and the wording follows them: "Deletes 1 creative scorecard.", "1 judge's pay for this film goes with them.", "Removes it from 1 award pool."; the paid clause reads "have already been paid; the payment records stay." for more than one.

No line mentions a purchase, because a submission that has one never gets this far — see A sold scorecard does not move.

The counts are read when the dialog opens. A scorecard a judge files while you are reading the dialog is not in the number — but it is deleted all the same, because the rule is the rule and not the count. Open the dialog again to see fresh numbers.

What is deleted, and why

Every creative scorecard on the film is deleted — filed, approved, still a draft on a judge's screen, waiting in the Review Queue, or left on a lapsed hold — with its answers, its written feedback and its award recommendations. A judge's scorecard belongs to this season's judging panel and to the category slot it was filed under, and neither exists in the season the film is going to; there is nothing for it to attach to there.

Technical and marketing (press-kit) scorecards filed by judges are deleted for the same reason, and counted in their own line. The same kind of scorecard filed by somebody on your staff — through Fill out a scorecard — is kept: it travels with its marks and its approval, and the "Keeps" line counts it.

Award pools. The film leaves every award pool in this season, results included — a win or an honorable mention goes with its row, and the line says "including 1 it won." when that is so. That is the opposite of a withdrawal, which leaves a pool row in place; a moved film is competing somewhere else now, not sitting out. See Award pools.

The "award pools" line counts the awards the film entered by hand or by recommendation, not its category awards. Every category is also an award, and the film's place in each of this season's category pools goes with the category it leaves — along with any standing, win or mention it held there — without a line of its own, because the same place is remade for it in the categories you tick in the new season. What is not remade is the result: a film that won its category here arrives In consideration in its new category's pool. See A category award's pool.

Three smaller things go without a line of their own:

• Flags — yours and everybody else's on this row — are cleared.
• Skips and declines recorded by this season's judges are cleared, and an open screener problem a judge reported about it leaves the Review Queue's Issues tab.
• Inbox notices to judges that named the film keep their text but no longer point at it.

And its selection status is reset to In Consideration. A Selected film arrives in the new season undecided.

Its Priority mark is not reset. A film marked Judge this first here is still marked in the new season, and goes to the front of that season's judges' queues. Clear it on the Settings tab afterwards if that is not what you want.

Nor is a hold. A film On hold here arrives On hold there, and no judge of the new season is offered it until you set it Ready.

Which scorecards travel, and which count

A staff-filed technical or press-kit scorecard is scored against one particular scorecard — the one the category it was filed under uses in that section. In the new season it counts toward the film's score only in a category that uses the same scorecard; in any other category the Scoring tab lists it and does not add it up. The categories the dialog pre-ticks are the ones that share a library category with the film's current ones, which is exactly when the scorecards are the same — so keeping the pre-ticks is how a carried card keeps counting.

What happens to judge pay

Deleting a judge's scorecard changes what that judge is owed, and the dialog's pay line is there so you know before you press Move:

• An approved, priced scorecard that has not been paid is simply no longer owed. It leaves that judge's approved total on the season's Ledger and their own Earnings list, and the season's Outstanding drops with it.
• A scorecard you have already logged a payment against is deleted too, and the payment stands. The judge's approved total drops, the payment does not, so their row reads Overpaid with the difference shown as a credit, and their statement reads "$12.00 paid above the approved total." — see Overpayments and credits. The credit resolves itself as more of that judge's work is approved. On the payments log the payment's Covers column no longer counts the deleted scorecard; a payment that named only that scorecard reads All from then on.

No adjustment, kill fee or note is written for you. If you want the judge kept whole, log a payment as you normally would; if you want the overpayment back, that is between you and the judge.

Released or shared scorecards

A film whose scorecard has gone out — but which nobody has unlocked — can still be moved. Two things happen, and the dialog names the ones that apply:

• Un-released. The film arrives in the new season with its scorecard not released — whether it had been released with this season or on its own. It is released again when the new season releases, or when somebody presses Release scorecard on it there.
• The share card is revoked. If the filmmaker had built a public share card, its link stops working at once — "page not found" for everyone who opens it — exactly as if they had turned it off. They can share again after the new season releases, and get a new address when they do. See Sharing your scorecard.

A film whose scorecard has been unlocked is a different matter entirely: it cannot be moved at all, and the dialog says so before anything else — see A sold scorecard does not move. So the awkward case that rule exists to prevent — a filmmaker who has paid, whose scorecard is then un-released under them — cannot arise.

What the filmmaker sees afterwards

A move emails nobody — with one exception. A submission whose submitter has never been sent their submission page link, moved into a season set to send it As each one arrives, is sent it within minutes, if it first arrived after that season made the choice; the move keeps the time it first arrived, not the time you moved it. See Who gets one. Otherwise the filmmaker's existing links are what tell them, if they look — they are tied to the submission, not to the season, which is why they keep working:

• Their submission link keeps working, with the same access code, and the page now names the new festival and season. Whether it is open for edits follows the new season's own state, exactly as for any other submission there — see Letting submitters fix their own details.
• Their scorecard link keeps working too, and reads Not available yet until the new season releases — even if they had already been reading their scorecard in this season. What they had not done is pay for it: a film whose scorecard has been unlocked cannot be moved.
• A share link they had posted is dead until they share again after that release.
• If they have saved the submission to their own FilmScorecard account, it stays there, and its row on their project's Festivals tab names the new festival and season, with the new season's next date — see Your festival entries. Anything the new season's press kit asks for appears in the To do list of their bell — see The bell.

Judges of the season it left

The film leaves every source-season judge's queue at once, because their queue is worked out from the season's submissions and the film is no longer one of them. Judges of the new season meet it in their queues exactly as any other film in its categories — nothing marks it as moved.

A judge who was in the middle of it has lost that work. The draft they held was a creative scorecard on this season, so it was deleted with the rest, and their In progress film is gone from their judging home. If their scoring screen was still open, their next click or keystroke on it is refused with "This film is no longer one of yours to score. Nothing was recorded." — see Scoring a film. Nothing tells them why; if it matters, tell them yourself.

After you press Move

1. The dialog and the detail panel close.
2. A message appears at the bottom of the screen: "Moved Title to Festival — Season label Year." It names the destination so you can check you chose the right one, and it clears itself after a few seconds.
3. The row leaves this list as it refreshes, and drops out of your selection if you had it ticked. You stay on this season's list.

In the new season's Submissions list the film is a row like any other: In Consideration, in the categories you ticked, with its unchanged SUB- number, tracking number, submitted date, screener, poster, press kit and statement — and its Priority mark and its hold, if it had them. Its Scoring tab shows the carried staff scorecards, if any, and nothing else filed yet. Its Audit tab keeps the submission's history, now read by the new season's team and no longer by the old one's; the move itself is not written there, and the judging lines of the scorecards the move deleted are gone with them.

There is no way back except another move. Moving the film home again is the same dialog from the other season — and everything the first move deleted is still deleted.

Moving and importing

Three things follow from the fact that a moved submission keeps its FilmFreeway Submission ID and leaves nothing behind in the season it left:

• Importing the old season's export again re-creates the film there. An import is matched against the season it is importing into and nothing else, and there is no longer a row in that season to be a duplicate against, so the row reads Imports and lands as a new submission. Watch for it on the preview and set it to Do not import — see How a duplicate is recognized.
• Importing the same film into the new season is a duplicate there. The moved row now carries that Submission ID in the new season, so the row reads Skipped, duplicate for every category it already competes in; a category the file names that you did not tick in the Move dialog is added as Imports, new category entry.
• Do not roll back the old season's batch once a film it created has been moved. This is a known gap. A rollback removes what the batch wrote, and a moved film's screener link, screener password, running time and page count are part of what the batch wrote — they are removed with the batch even though the film itself is no longer in the season. The rollback then fails partway, on that film, with "That did not work. Try again.", and retrying fails the same way every time: the batch's other submissions have left the season by then, the moved film is left in its new season with no screener and no length, and the batch is never recorded as rolled back. Until this is fixed, treat a batch with a moved film in it as final, and if you have already tried it, ask whoever administers FilmScorecard for you rather than pressing Retry. See Rolling a batch back.

Withdrawing a submission

Withdraw from the row menu, or from the Withdraw card on the detail panel's Settings tab. Both open the same dialog, headed "Withdraw Title from the season?", which states the consequences plainly:

Removes Title from the judging list. The 2 scorecards already filed are kept.

It leaves this list and every count on this screen. Its selection status is kept as it is.

The first sentence counts the scorecards already released for this submission — it reads "Nothing has been scored yet." when there are none. It counts approved scorecards: work still waiting in the Review Queue is not in the number, though it too is kept.

Withdrawing is not deleting. The record stays, and its selection status is left exactly as it was — a withdrawn Selected film is still recorded as Selected. What changes is that the submission leaves this screen entirely, as described in What is on the list.

On a festival connected to FilmFreeway, a filmmaker's withdrawal there is applied here. The sync withdraws the film the way this dialog does — once, with no dialog — as long as no judge has started a creative scorecard on it and its scorecard has not been unlocked; its Audit tab then reads "FilmFreeway withdrew the submission". A film a judge has started or a filmmaker has unlocked, and any film disqualified on FilmFreeway, stays in judging here with a notice at the top of its record until you withdraw it yourself — see FilmFreeway notices. The Changed on FilmFreeway chip in the toolbar gathers every film with a notice.

A withdrawn submission's categories cannot be edited, from here or anywhere: it is off the working list, so Edit categories on a stale tab is refused with "You do not have permission to change this submission." A scorecard cannot be filled in for one either — a scoring page left open on a submission that is then withdrawn answers "page not found" on reload, and a filing is refused with "This submission is no longer in the season, so it cannot be scored."

And its submitter's own edit page closes. A filmmaker who was correcting their details reads "Edits are closed" on their next load, with no date on it, and a submission-link send skips them from then on.

Withdrawing does not take a submission out of an award pool. If it was already in the running for an award, its row stays there and still counts, because a pool is the record of who was in the running. It simply can no longer be opened from that screen. In a category award's pool it also loses its position, stops counting as one of the category's entries, and no longer holds up the release of that category's rank. See A withdrawn entrant keeps its place.

Withdrawing is allowed on a submission whose scorecard has been unlocked, unlike moving it — the filmmaker keeps whatever they unlocked, and their scorecard page is unaffected.

There is no way to bring it back from this screen. A restore surface has not been built yet, so treat a withdrawal as a one-way move for now, and check the title in the dialog header before you confirm. A withdrawn submission cannot be moved to another season either — Move is for submissions that are still on this list. If what you actually need is the film judged somewhere else rather than out of judging altogether, move it instead of withdrawing it: see Moving a submission to another festival. And if you only need judges to leave it alone for now, put it On hold instead: that is undone with one switch.

If the submission was open in the detail panel, the panel closes with it. And if a colleague withdraws something you have open, your panel says so instead of showing a record that is no longer there — see When the record cannot be shown.

Flags are private

The flag at the end of each row — and the matching one in the detail panel's header — is yours alone. Nobody else in your organization sees your flags, including the organization's owner, and you never see theirs. There is no shared "someone flagged this" state anywhere in FilmScorecard. The shared marks are Priority and the judging hold, below — and they are deliberately not flags.

Use it as a personal "come back to this". Press it once to set it, press it again to clear it. It changes as you press it and goes back if the save is refused, with a message at the bottom of the screen. There is no sort by flag, so flagged rows stay where they are in whatever order you are working in.

Priority: judge this first

Priority tells the season's judges to reach a film before the others. It is one switch per submission, on or off, and it is the season's rather than yours: everybody on your team sees the same mark, and every judge who can take the film is offered it ahead of the rest.

Setting it

1. Open the submission and choose the Settings tab.
2. In the actions card under the two addresses, turn on Judge this first — its first row.

Turn the same switch off to clear it. The change shows at once, on the switch and on the list behind the panel; the switch cannot be pressed again while that change is saving, and the row's menu is greyed out for the same moment. If it is refused, the switch and the list go back to how they were, and a red message at the bottom of the screen says "Could not change priority."

That card is the only place on this screen it is set. For an organization with AI access, a connected AI app can also set and clear it; see Connecting an AI app. There is no Priority item in the row menu and no Priority button on the bulk bar, so marking twenty films is twenty trips to the Settings tab. The card is drawn for everybody who can make changes to the season; viewers do not see it, though they see the mark on the list.

Seeing it

A priority row shows a small indigo double chevron — two stacked arrowheads pointing up — just before its title. It stays put however long the title is; the title shortens beside it. There is no tooltip, and a screen reader reads "Priority" before the title.

It is not a flag, and it has nothing to do with the Flag column: your flag is private, and this mark is the same for everybody.

The Priority filter in the toolbar finds the marked rows — Priority, or Not priority for the rest — counted, like every filter, across the whole season. See Searching and filtering.

What it does

Every judge who can take a marked film is offered it before any unmarked one. Only two things come ahead of it: a film a judge is already holding, and a film you sent back to that judge after they reported a problem with it. The whole order is on How the judging queue works.

• It changes the order and nothing else. A film still only reaches a judge it would have reached anyway — in their scope, with a place free in a category they may score. Priority does not add judges, lift a category past its Judges per category, or take a film from a judge who is holding another.
• There are no levels. Every marked film is as urgent as every other, and it does not matter which you marked first. Among them, judges finish films that are already under way before starting new ones.
• It takes effect on each judge's next visit to their judging home. Nobody is emailed.
• Judges never see it. Nothing on any judge's screen marks a film as priority or says why a film is in front of them.
• A hold beats it. A Priority film that is also On hold is offered to nobody; set it Ready and it goes straight to the front again.
• The mark outlives its usefulness, harmlessly. Once a film has every scorecard it needs it is in nobody's queue, so its mark does nothing — but it stays on the row until you clear it. A withdrawn or disqualified film keeps its mark too, off this list, and it does nothing there either.
• It travels with a move. A marked film moved to another season is still marked there — see Moving a submission to another festival.
• Nothing records who set it, or when. No screen shows either, and the submission's Audit tab does not list priority changes.

Holding a submission out of judging

On hold keeps a film away from your judges until you say it is ready. It is one switch per submission — Ready or On hold — and, like Priority, it is the season's rather than yours: everybody on your team sees the same word in the Judging column. Use it for a film you do not want judged yet: a screener that still has to be fixed, an entry you are still checking, a batch you want to look over before judges see it.

Every submission is Ready unless somebody holds it. Nothing puts a film on hold by itself.

Putting films on hold

One film:

1. Open the submission and choose the Settings tab.
2. Turn on Hold from judges, the row directly under Judge this first. The switch turns amber, and the film reads On hold in the list's Judging column.

Turn the same switch off to make it Ready again. The change shows at once, on the switch and in the Judging column behind the panel; the switch cannot be pressed again while that change is saving, and the row's menu is greyed out for the same moment. If it is refused, both go back to how they were, and a red message at the bottom of the screen says "Could not change the judging hold." The card is drawn for everybody who can make changes to the season; viewers do not see it, though they see the Judging column.

Many films:

1. Tick the rows — the Judging filter set to Ready is a quick way to see only the films not yet held.
2. Press Hold on the bulk bar, or Ready to release them.

Like the bar's status moves, it applies the moment you press it, with no confirmation: every ticked row's Judging cell changes at once, and then your selection clears. A ticked film that is already in the state you asked for is simply left as it is. If the change is refused, the rows go back, your ticks stay, and the message at the bottom of the screen says why:

• "This submission is no longer in this season." — one of the ticked films was withdrawn or moved while you had it ticked. The others were changed; the list re-reads itself, so the Judging column shows which. (A viewer's press gets this same sentence, for a different reason — see Who can work here.)
• "Something in the form is not valid. Check the fields and try again." — more than 500 rows were ticked. Nothing changed; do it in two goes.

A whole import can arrive on hold. The import's confirm dialog asks whether its new submissions arrive Ready for judging or On hold — see Ready for judging or On hold.

Seeing it

• The Judging column, straight after Status: Ready in a grey pill, On hold in amber.
• The Judging filter in the toolbar — Ready or On hold, counted, like every filter, across the whole season. See Searching and filtering.
• The season's dashboard carries a warning — "4 submissions on hold" — with a link to this list already filtered to On hold, before judging opens and while it runs. See The two warnings.

What it does

• No judge is offered a held film, from each judge's next visit to their judging home. It is not in anybody's queue, and it is left out of every count of films a judge has to do. Judges never see the hold: nothing on their screens names it, and a held film is simply not among the films they are offered. See The film is On hold.
• A judge already scoring it keeps it. They can finish and file their scorecard, and nobody else is offered the film meanwhile. If they skip it or let it lapse, it does not go back to anybody's queue until you set it Ready.
• Ready puts it back in front of every judge who could take it, from their next visit.
• A film reported with a screener problem cannot be sent back while it is on hold — see Screener problems. Set it Ready first.
• Your own team can still score it. Fill out a scorecard works on a held film exactly as on any other — see Filling out a scorecard yourself.
• It stays on every one of your screens: this list and its counts, the dashboard's progress, the award screens. The one figure that leaves it out is each judge's Remaining on the Judges roster, which counts films that judge could still score.
• A season set to release When every submission is approved still waits for it. A film left on hold with nobody scoring it holds that release back — see When every submission is approved.
• It is not a status. Holding a film leaves its selection — In Consideration, Selected or Not Selected — exactly as it was, and changing its status does not touch the hold.
• It travels with a move. A held film moved to another season is still on hold there — see Moving a submission to another festival.
• The submission's Audit tab says who put a film on hold, and when — "held the submission out of judging", and "returned the submission to judging" when it is set Ready, under the name of whoever did it; an import that arrived on hold is under the name of whoever ran it. Holds from before the tab began recording them are not there, except that a film already on hold that day shows when it was held, and by whom. Nothing else shows either. See The Audit tab.

The program planner

Program planner sits directly under the toolbar. It answers one question — which films fit in a 90-minute block? — and it answers it by looking, not by changing anything.

The planner writes nothing. It hides rows, adds up runtimes and draws a line. It does not select anything, does not change any status, and does not touch a single record. Committing to a program is the job of the selection bar and the Status column. That separation is the point: you can try four different runtimes without touching your data.

Open it and you get:

• A runtime field in minutes, plus three preset chips: 90 min, 120 min, 200 min.
• Hide screenplays — takes screenplays out of the table while you plan.
• Hide below the cut — appears once a cut line is drawn, and hides everything under it.
• Clear — clears the runtime and the "hide below the cut" tick.
• A note on the right that says what the planner is currently doing.

Collapsed, the strip summarises itself: "Set a runtime and see what fits" before you start, and "8 films, 96 of 120 minutes" once a runtime is set.

How the cut line is worked out

Setting a runtime switches the list to Overall, high to low, because a cut line means nothing in any other order. From the top of the list downward, the planner adds up film runtimes until one reaches or passes your target, and keeps that last film in. It then draws the CUT LINE row underneath it, and gives the rows above the line an indigo edge.

Three rules decide what gets counted:

1. Screenplays are never counted. They are not competing for a runtime slot. They stay in the list, greyed into the background of the exercise, unless you tick Hide screenplays.
2. A film with no recorded runtime is skipped. It adds nothing and is not counted among the films that fit — although it does still sit above the line and take the indigo edge, so the highlighted rows can outnumber the number in "6 films fit". If a film matters to your program, give it a runtime on the Information tab first.
3. Only loaded rows are considered. The planner walks what is on screen. Load the rest of the season before you trust the arithmetic on a long list.

The cut-line row itself states both halves: "6 films fit, 118 of 120 minutes programmed", then the consequence, which is one of:

• "Every film in this view is in the program."
• "Lands exactly on the target."
• "Runs 4 minutes long, the last film is kept in."
• "9 submissions below the cut are hidden." — which takes precedence while Hide below the cut is on.

Remember what "score order" means while judging is running. The order is points banked, so a film waiting on two more judges sits below one that is finished, whatever its judges thought of it — and rows without a released score all tie and fall back to alphabetical order. Plan a program from a list narrowed to All scores in; before that, the planner is partly filling your program with the films that are furthest along and, under them, the ones that come first in the alphabet.

If you sort by another column while a runtime is set, the cut line vanishes rather than lying to you: the note reads "The cut line needs the list in score order." and a Sort by score button appears to put it back.

Your runtime survives the list refreshing under you, so rows that arrive while you are planning simply join the arithmetic. It is forgotten when you reload the page: the planner lives in this browser rather than in the season.

When the list is empty

Two different empty states, because they need two different answers:

• Nothing matches your filters — "No submissions match these filters", with "Try widening the category or status filter, or clearing the search." and a Clear filters button.
• Nothing in the season at all — "No submissions in this season yet", with "Import a FilmFreeway export to start the list. Nothing is judged until submissions are here." and an Import submissions button. Clearing filters would not put a single row on screen here, so it is not offered.

When something fails

A failed status move, flag, priority change, hold, category change, poster drop, Edit-mode cell or screenplay PDF upload shows a message in a red bar at the bottom of the screen. It stays until you choose Dismiss, and only the most recent message is shown. The Edit categories, Move, Withdraw and Email submission links dialogs, and Edit mode's Tagline, Synopsis and Tech specs pop-outs, keep their message inside themselves and stay open.

A status move, a flag, a priority change and a hold are shown before they are saved, so they are the four that visibly undo themselves: the cell or the switch changes as you press it, and if the server refuses it goes back to what it was, with the message underneath saying why. Everything else here waits for the server, so a refusal means nothing on screen ever changed. Either way there is nothing for you to put right — read the message and try again.

The sentences you may see:

Filling in a scorecard has its own set of messages, and they all appear on the scoring page rather than here — see If filing is refused.

Getting submissions onto this list

Import submissions in the toolbar — and the button in the empty state — open the season's Imports screen. From there you upload a FilmFreeway CSV export, match its categories to yours, and check every row before anything is written; see Importing submissions.

Four things follow from how importing works, and they show up here:

• Imported submissions appear on this list as they are written, so a long import fills the table while you watch it run — a batch of rows at a time, as the list refreshes itself. None of them arrives marked Priority, and they arrive Ready unless the import's confirm dialog was set to On hold — see Ready for judging or On hold.
• A row listing several categories arrives competing in all of them, with a +N pill on the Category cell from the moment it lands — and in each of those categories' award pools from the same moment; see A category award's pool.
• A FilmFreeway export carries no tagline and no poster, so imported rows arrive without either, and are not marked incomplete for it. See An incomplete record. Posters are added afterwards by dropping image files on the rows — see Adding posters from the list — and taglines, synopses and the rest in Edit mode; see Edit mode.
• A whole import can be undone for 30 days. Rolling a batch back removes every submission it created, withdrawn ones included — but a batch judges have started scoring, or one holding a scorecard a filmmaker has unlocked, is refused outright, and a batch that created a film since moved to another season must not be rolled back at all; see Moving and importing and Rolling a batch back. A FilmFreeway sync's films are never rolled back batch by batch: Undo sync, on the season's FilmFreeway settings, removes every film the sync brought in, in one go and under limits of its own — see Connecting FilmFreeway.

Importing may email submitters within minutes. On a season set to send the submission page link As each one arrives (Settings → Emails, Step 1 · First contact), each new submission an import or a FilmFreeway sync brings in is emailed its link a few minutes after it lands, once it is in a category — a submission that lands in none waits until you give it one; see Submissions with no category. On a season set to Only when I click Send now, or one where nobody has chosen yet, no submitter hears from FilmScorecard until somebody presses a button — Email submission links here, Send to N now on Settings → Emails, or a release on Settings → Results. See Inviting submitters and Releasing scorecards.

There is no way to add a submission by hand — importing is the only route onto this list, whether you import a file yourself or, on a festival connected to FilmFreeway, the sync brings new films in on its own. Moving one in from another season of your organization is the one other way a row arrives here; see Moving a submission to another festival.

What does not work yet

• No filter for incomplete records. The Poster filter finds the rows with no poster, but nothing on the list finds a missing synopsis, tagline or statement; the note on the detail panel's Information tab is where those are named, one submission at a time.
• No undo for a dropped poster. A drop on a row that already had one replaces it outright, and the old image is not kept anywhere.
• No bulk category editing, and no way to restore a withdrawn submission.
• No bulk Priority, and no record of it. Priority is set one submission at a time, from its detail panel — unlike a hold, which the bulk bar sets for many at once; there is no Priority column or sort, no way to rank marked films against each other, and nothing shows who marked a film or when. See Priority: judge this first.
• No column for who held a film. Who put a film on hold, and when, is on its Audit tab, one submission at a time, and there is no "every new submission starts on hold" setting for the season — only the import's own choice. See Holding a submission out of judging.
• No bulk move, no move to another organization, and no record of a move. A submission moves one at a time, from its detail panel, to a season your own organization runs; the Audit tab does not record that it happened, and the season it left keeps no trace of it. See Moving a submission to another festival.
• No Released column, filter or sort. Whether a submission's scorecard has been released — with the season, or on its own — is on its detail panel's Settings tab, one submission at a time; see Releasing one submission's scorecard.
• No filter for unlocked scorecards. The Purchased column ticks every row whose scorecard has been unlocked, for anybody with View revenue and payouts, and sorts; how many of a submission's categories are unlocked is the line in its Scorecard link card on the Settings tab — and Orders lists every purchase across every festival, for owners and org admins.
• No Edited or Invited column. Whether a submitter has edited their own record is one line on the detail panel's Information tab. Whether they have been sent their page — and every other email sent about the submission — is on its Audit tab, one submission at a time; the season's Sent so far count on Settings → Emails is the only figure across the season. See Letting submitters fix their own details and Inviting submitters.
• No bulk edit in Edit mode. Each cell saves one field on one submission; there is no way to type a value once and apply it to many rows.
• No export from this screen. Once judging is open, the Season overview exports this same list — same rows, same scores — as a CSV. Its Score column is the same banked figure, so the same warning applies: it is not a quality ranking until judging is finished.
• No column, sort or filter that forecasts a finished score. The screen reports what has been banked and nothing else; how far along a film is, is what the Scores in column and the Scoring filter are for.
• Nothing announces what a refresh brought in. Rows change under you quietly — there is no "3 new submissions" notice and no highlight on a row that has just moved.

Every neighbouring row in the season block is live now. Judges is the season's roster — see Judges. Review Queue is where filed scorecards are approved, which is what puts scores on this screen — see Review Queue. Awards is where a season's awards are decided, and its pools draw on the submissions listed here — see Awards. Settings, at the bottom of the block, is live for organization owners and staff: see Festival settings.