# The technical review card

> From FilmScorecard Help: https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/technical-review

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](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/scoring-a-film.md).

## 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](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/scoring-a-film.md#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`

| The figure | What it is |
| --- | --- |
| **16 / 20** | What your marks have earned, out of everything this card can award. A **Pass** awards that item's own points; a **Fail** awards none; an item you have not marked awards none either. |
| **8.0 normalized** | The same result rescaled onto ten, to one decimal — so a 20-point card and a 40-point card can be read side by side. |

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](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/your-judging-home.md#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](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/how-the-judging-queue-works.md#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](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/creative-scorecard.md), and even that goes
through the coordinator first.