The technical review card

The technical card is a checklist about the file, not about the film: does it play, is it the right length, is the audio usable, whatever the festival wrote. You mark every item Pass or Fail, and a Fail opens a box for one line explaining what is wrong. That line is optional.

The technical card you hold is yours alone and is filed once for this film. That is why you never see it twice, and why there is no Skip button while you hold it. Everything else about the screen — taking a film, autosave, filing, leaving — is on Scoring a film.

What the card says at the top

The heading is Technical review. Under it, the festival's own description of the scorecard, or this if they wrote none:

Mark each item pass or fail. This card is filed once for this film and is never shown to the filmmaker.

A screenplay whose script the festival uploaded as a PDF shows Open PDF in the film pane rather than a link — the file to check is that PDF. See The film pane.

Marking an item

Each row carries the item's wording and any guidance the festival wrote for judges, then, on the right, what the item is worth — "4 pts" — and two buttons: Pass and Fail. The points sit in a column of their own just left of the buttons, so they line up down the card however long each item's wording is.

They are two buttons rather than a tick box on purpose. A row has three states — nobody has looked at it yet, it passed, it failed — and a tick box can only say two of them. An item you have not touched is not a pass.

Either button can be changed until the card is filed. Marks save the instant you press them.

The note on a Fail

Pressing Fail opens a box under the row:

What is wrong, in one line. The coordinator reads this.

with, under it:

Seen by the coordinator only, never by the filmmaker.

The note is optional. Write one where it helps the coordinator and leave it empty where the item's own wording already says everything. A fail with no note files exactly like a fail with one; the only thing that holds the card is an item nobody has marked yet.

The first item's note carries a different line, and it is the rule worth knowing:

You hold the technical card on this film, so a file that will not play is a fail you record here, not a skip to the coordinator.

That is exactly why the top bar has no Skip: technical issue button while you hold this card. A broken screener is not a reason to hand the film back — it is the finding, and this card is where it is recorded.

The two figures at the foot

Under the last item:

Technical score 16 / 20 8.0 normalized

Both figures move as you mark, and both are worked out from your marks every time they are shown. Neither is stored anywhere, and neither is a verdict: the numbers are there so you can see the shape of what you recorded.

A card whose items are all worth zero points — or one with no items at all — reads 0 / 0 and 0.0 normalized rather than breaking. It can still be filed.

Under the figures, the line that answers the obvious worry:

A fail does not stop the creative card by itself. The coordinator decides whether the film is troubleshot or scored as it stands.

Filing it

The card can be filed once every item is marked and every Fail has a note. The button reads Complete technical review.

After filing, the card locks: the Pass/Fail buttons go inert, the notes become read-only, and a strip appears at the top —

• green, "Technical review filed, everything passed", when nothing failed;
• amber, "Technical review filed with 1 fail", when anything did.

Both carry 16 / 20 · 8.0 normalized · filed just now and the line "Filed and locked. The rows below are how it went in." There is no way to unfile or edit it yourself; if something in it is wrong, message the festival. The festival can send it back to you before approving it, with a note: it then opens again for you to change and file once more, at the rate it was first filed at — see Scorecards sent back to you.

On a season where creative judging waits for technical approval — the default — creative judges are offered the film's creative scorecard only once the festival approves this review. A review sent back to you keeps it waiting. See Waiting for the technical review.

If the festival takes the film's category out of what you judge while you hold the technical card, the card stays yours to finish, and it pays your agreed rate.

If you also hold the creative card on this film, the filed technical card appears there as a collapsed strip with a Read it link that expands to every item, its Pass or Fail badge and any note you wrote.

What the filmmaker sees

Nothing on this card ever reaches the filmmaker — not the marks, not the score, not your notes. The written feedback the submitter may eventually read lives on the creative scorecard, and even that goes through the coordinator first.