# Your account

> From FilmScorecard Help: https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/your-account

Two screens hold everything a festival knows about you as a judge. **Your
profile** is who you are, where you are and what you are willing to review —
shown the way it reads, with a pencil on each section to change it. **Your
account** is the settings around it: whether festivals can find you, which ones
may not, how much you can take on, which festivals you work for, and what
reaches your inbox.

**One set of settings, for the whole of FilmScorecard.** Nothing here belongs to a
particular festival. Change your bio once and every festival that can see you
sees the new one; pause new assignments once and every festival you judge for
is paused at the same moment.

## Finding the screen

Three ways in:

- **Profile** and **Account** are the last two rows of the left navigation of
  the judging area, under **Next submission**, **Open calls**, **Inbox** — and
  **Earnings**, once any season has you on its roster (see
  [Earnings](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/earnings.md)).
- **Your profile** and **Your account** in the menu behind your name in the
  top-right corner. That
  menu is also where **Sign out** now lives — see
  [Signing out](#signing-out).
- Their addresses directly:

```
/account/profile
/account
```

**Both open even if you never finished the four setup steps** — a profile you
have not filled in yet simply shows empty. Arriving signed out sends you to the
log-in screen.

### What is on it

Your account opens with its title, **Your account**, and one sentence: "Your
directory listing, how much you take on, and how festivals reach you. One set
of settings across every festival you judge for." Under it — only while you
are paused — the amber [pause banner](#pausing-new-assignments), then the four
tabs.

**Every setting is a row**: on the left, its name and a sentence or two saying
what it does; on the right, the control.

### The tab is part of the address

Your account has four tabs — **Directory listing**, **Availability**,
**Festivals**, **Notifications** — and the one you are on is written into the
address:

| Tab | Address |
| --- | --- |
| Directory listing | `/account` |
| Availability | `/account?tab=availability` |
| Festivals | `/account?tab=festivals` |
| Notifications | `/account?tab=notifications` |

Reload, or come back to a bookmark, and you land on the same tab. **An address
naming a tab that does not exist opens Directory listing** rather than failing
— so an old link to `?tab=profile` or `?tab=what-you-judge` still works; what
those tabs held is on [Your profile](#your-profile) now.

Moving between tabs replaces the address rather than stacking it, so **Back
takes you off the account screen** rather than walking you through four tabs.

### What the screen does not carry

- **No festival of its own.** Nothing on this screen belongs to one festival,
  so the festival switcher along the top reads **Your festivals** rather than
  a name, with nothing in its menu highlighted; picking a festival from it
  opens [your judging home](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/your-judging-home.md) for that festival. The
  sidebar is the same one every judging screen carries — the **Your
  festivals** list included, once any season has you on its roster — and a
  festival there opens the same place. With no seat anywhere, both the
  switcher and the list are absent.
- **The line at the bottom of the sidebar** reads "These settings belong to
  your account and follow you to every festival you judge for."

## How saving works

**Your account and Your profile save in different ways.**

### On Your account

Each setting saves in one of two ways:

- **Switches and choices save the moment you change them**, with no button —
  the listing switch and How you judge on Directory listing, the pause switch
  and its resume date on Availability, and everything on Notifications. On
  Directory listing and Notifications a line reads **Saving…** while the change
  is on its way. **A refused change puts the control back where it was**, with
  the reason in an amber strip at the top of its card.
- **A list or a typed field waits for the tab's Save bar** — the Blocked
  festivals card on Directory listing, and the Availability card. Change
  anything there and a bar floats at the bottom of the screen: an amber dot,
  **Unsaved changes on Directory listing** (or **on Availability**),
  **Discard** and **Save changes**. Discard puts the tab back as it was last
  saved; Save changes saves it and the bar goes.

With nothing unsaved, the tab ends with a quiet line instead: **All changes
saved.**, followed by **Last saved** and a date once there is one.

The bar warns you in two ways:

- **"Fix the highlighted setting before saving."** — a field on the tab is over
  its limit. Save changes stays greyed until you fix it.
- **"Some changes weren't saved. The card above says why."** — the save was
  refused. The card says why at its top, or under the field it belongs to, and
  **nothing you typed is cleared**. Fix it and press Save changes again.

**Switching tabs keeps unsaved work.** A change still waiting on Directory
listing or Availability stays where you left it while you look at another tab,
and that tab's name carries a small amber dot until you save or discard it.

**Leaving the screen does not.** Nothing warns you about unsaved changes here:
following a link, or closing the browser tab, discards anything still waiting
for Save changes, with no prompt.

**The dates on the Directory listing card's own line and at the foot of
Availability are the last time anything on your profile was saved** — from
this screen or from Your profile, not only from that card.

### On Your profile

**Every section saves on its own, and only when you press its button**, inside
the section's dialog. **A successful save closes the dialog** and shows the new
values.

- The button — **Save profile** or **Save what you judge** — **is greyed out
  until you change something** in that dialog.
- Beside it, a monospace line: **Saved just now** immediately after a save,
  **Saved Aug 14, 2026, 10:04 AM** afterwards, or **Not saved yet**.
- **A refused field is marked in red with the message under it**, replacing
  that field's help line. **A refusal that belongs to no single field** appears
  as an amber strip directly above the Save row.
- **Nothing you typed is cleared by a refusal.** Fix the field and press Save
  again.

## Your profile

`/account/profile`, under the **YOUR PROFILE** label. Five cards, read first:

- **The intro** — your photo or initials, your display name and pronouns, your
  judge type, where you are, and your public link.
- **About** — your short bio, or an **Add a short bio** link while it is empty.
- **Credits** — the same, with **Add credits**.
- **What I judge** — judge type, formats, genres and languages as tags, and
  whether you have a FilmFreeway account (**Yes** or **No**).
- **Judging record** — films scored, the share of them on time, and seasons
  judged. Nothing to edit: it is what you have done. It appears once you have
  a judge ID.

**View public profile**, top right, opens what a coordinator actually sees —
see [View public profile](#view-public-profile). It is not this page: your
photo, for one, is not shown to coordinators yet.

**Each of the first four has a pencil** in its top-right corner (**Edit intro**,
**Edit about**, **Edit credits**, **Edit what I judge**). It opens a dialog
with just that section's fields and its own Save; Escape or clicking outside
closes it without saving. Your phone number is in **Edit intro** but is never
shown on the card.

**About and Credits save with your intro's fields as they stand**, so if your
intro is missing something required — a judge who skipped setup has no country
yet — their Save is refused with "Fix your intro first:" and the reason. Open
**Edit intro**, fix it, and try again.

### Your photo

At the top of **Edit intro**: your photo or your initials, **Upload photo**,
and — only when you have one — **Remove photo**.

- **PNG, JPG and WebP, up to 5 MB.** The help line names PNG and JPG; WebP
  works too.
- **The photo is not part of the card's Save.** It commits on its own as soon
  as the upload lands, and the new image appears immediately while it is still
  going up.
- **Remove photo puts you back to initials**, straight away.
- **A failed upload leaves your previous photo alone** and says so under the
  row. You will see one of "Choose a PNG, JPG or WebP image.", "Choose an image
  under 5 MB.", or "That photo could not be uploaded. Your previous one is
  unchanged."

**Your photo is not shown to coordinators anywhere yet** — the
[judges directory](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/judges-directory.md) draws initials for everybody, and so
does your own preview of it. It is stored for the screens that will use it.

### The fields

| Field | Rules |
| --- | --- |
| **Display name** | **Required**, 80 characters at most. It is what signs the scorecards you file. |
| **Pronouns** | Optional, 40 characters. |
| **Country** | **Required.** A searchable list of every country, picked by name — United States first, then A to Z. See [Where you are](#where-you-are). |
| **State or territory** | **Shown only when the country is United States.** A searchable list of the states and territories, with **Select a state** at the top as a real choice. Optional. |
| **City** | Optional, 120 characters. Free text. |
| **Time zone** | A searchable list of about forty main time zones by the names people use, with a city or two — such as **Central Time (Chicago, Dallas)** — US zones first, then UTC, then the rest of the world west to east. A zone you saved earlier that is not on the list stays in it. **Not set** is at the top as a real choice. See [The three lists](#the-three-lists). |
| **Public link** | Optional, 200 characters, **must start with `https://`**. |
| **Phone number** | Optional, 40 characters. Nothing in FilmScorecard calls or messages anybody today. |
| **Short bio** | Optional, 400 characters, with a counter that turns red when you go over. |
| **Credits** | Optional, 200 characters, with its own counter. Shown under your bio. |

**Emptying an optional field is a real answer** and is saved as such.

**Your display name is also what an application to an open call is filed
under** — it, or your full name, or failing both the email address on your judge
record. See [Applying to an open call](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/applying-to-an-open-call.md).

### Where you are

**Country, State or territory and City replace the single Location box** this
card used to carry. The three of them are what the
[judges directory](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/judges-directory.md#the-location-filter) lets a festival
narrow by — country first, then region, then city.

- **Country is required and cannot be cleared.** Choose **Select a country**
  again and pressing Save is refused with "Choose a country from the list."; the
  country you had saved is left exactly as it was.
- **State or territory is a list, and only for the United States.** Pick a
  country without one and the field disappears — and whatever state it held is
  cleared with it, so a move from Texas to Toronto never leaves "Texas" on your
  record. Pick United States again and it returns, empty. It is optional;
  **Select a state** is the blank answer.
- **City is free text and genuinely optional.** Write it the way people where
  you live write it; nothing checks it, and emptying it is a real answer that
  saves.
- **Coordinators see the three of them as one line** — city, then state, then
  the country's full name, skipping whatever you left out: "Austin, Texas,
  United States", "Seoul, South Korea", or just "Ghana".
- **A festival searching the directory can type a country name** and find you
  even if the country is all you gave.

**This is the same answer as the About step**, written in the same place. Change
it here or on
[step 3 of the setup flow](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/setting-up-your-judge-profile.md#where-you-are);
both write the same profile and both require a country.

### The three lists

Country, State or territory and Time zone open a list with a search box at the
top rather than a plain dropdown:

1. Click the field. The list opens under it with the search box ready to type
   in.
2. Type part of what you want — `gha` for Ghana, `wash` for Washington,
   `central` or `chicago` for Central Time (Chicago, Dallas). Case does not
   matter.
3. Choose a row. The list closes and the field shows it; the card is now
   unsaved, like any other change.

If nothing matches, the list reads `No match for "…".` with a **Clear search**
link; it is never simply empty. **Escape** clears what you typed, or closes the
list once the box is empty; clicking anywhere else closes it too. Opening a
list again always starts from the full list. On a phone, tap the search box to
bring the keyboard up.

## Directory listing tab

The first tab of Your account: whether festivals you do not already work for
can find you, and which festivals may not invite you.

### Directory listing

The first card decides whether festivals you have never worked with can find
you at all.

> Whether every festival on FilmScorecard can find you and invite you to a season.

| Row | What it does |
| --- | --- |
| **List me in the judge directory** | A switch, reading **Listed in the directory** or **Not listed** beside it. On, it puts you in the [judges directory](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/judges-directory.md), where any festival on FilmScorecard can read your profile, see the seasons you have judged, and invite you to a season. The row's sentence: "Festivals can find your profile, see the seasons you have judged, and invite you. Declining an invite does not affect your listing." |
| **How you judge** | "Whether you judge for pay or as a volunteer. Coordinators see it when they look for judges." A choice of two, **Volunteer** or **Paid**, and no amount. Each carries its own line: "Coordinators see that you judge as a volunteer. They can still offer to pay you." under Volunteer, and "Coordinators see that you judge for pay. What you are paid is set by each invitation's terms." under Paid. |

**One switch, not two.** Being listed *is* being open to invitations — there is
no separate "Open to invites" control, and no state where you are findable but
cannot be invited. Off, and no festival you do not already judge for can find
you or invite you.

**None of this affects applying.** [Open calls](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/open-calls.md) is open to
every judge with a finished profile, listed or not, and blocking a festival does
not stop you applying to one of their calls.

Two things the card does not say:

- **Invitations arrive by email and are also listed inside the app**, on the
  **Invitations** tab of your inbox, which is where you accept, decline or block
  the festival — see [Your invitations](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/your-invitations.md). The **Invites and
  requests** block on the [Festivals tab](#festivals) is a *different* thing: a
  read-only record with no controls on it at all.
- **A festival can only have one open invitation to you at a time**, and that
  is exactly what it says: a festival whose invitation you declined can invite
  you to the same season again later.

**Paid or Volunteer is a statement, not a price.** You never name a figure
anywhere on your profile — there is no amount box, and the card does not ask
for one. What a coordinator sees on your directory card and in your profile
panel is the word, **Paid** or **Volunteer**, beside your judge type. When they
invite you they set the terms themselves, category by category — or invite you
as a volunteer — and you accept or decline what they send. **There is no
counter-offer on an invitation** — to ask for a different figure on one, reply
to the invitation email and ask them to invite you again. Volunteer means you
judge without pay; it is not a rate of zero, and a festival that reads it can
still send you a paid invitation.

**An open-call application is the other case, and the only negotiating surface
in FilmScorecard.** There you name a figure per category, and if the festival
replies with different ones you can accept them or send back another set — see
[When the festival replies with different rates](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/applying-to-an-open-call.md#when-the-festival-replies-with-different-rates).

**It is not used when you apply to an open call, either.** The rates on an
application are the figures you accept or type on that form, category by
category, every time.

**And it is not what you are paid.** What a festival actually agreed with you is
the per-category pair on the invitation you accepted, and what that has come to
so far is on [Earnings](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/earnings.md).

**Both rows save the moment you change them** — there is no button. The line
at the foot of the card reads **Saving…** while the change goes through, then
**Saved just now**; a refused change puts the control back and says why at the
top of the card. Blocked festivals are a card of their own beneath this one,
and they wait for the tab's Save bar — see
[Blocking a festival](#blocking-a-festival).

### View public profile

**View public profile** — in the corner of the Directory listing card, and at
the top right of [Your profile](#your-profile) — opens **the same panel a
coordinator sees** in the judges directory, with an indigo strip across the
top:

> Preview. This is your profile as a coordinator sees it in the judge
> directory.

It shows your saved values, not your unsaved typing — press Save first. Its
three tabs are Profile, Seasons and References, exactly as a coordinator gets
them, and at the foot of it:

> Your email, phone, capacity and coordinator note are never shown here.

Its header carries your location line — city, region and country, put together
the way a coordinator reads it — so the preview is also the quickest way to
check that the three fields read the way you meant.

**Among the facts on its Profile tab is a cell headed FilmFreeway account**,
reading **Yes** or **No**, directly under Judge type. It is your answer to the
tick box in [What I judge](#filmfreeway-account), shown to a
coordinator exactly as it is shown to you here. Nothing else about FilmFreeway
is on the preview — not the handle you may have typed, and not whether any
festival has turned FilmFreeway access on for you.

Two things the preview leaves out on purpose: **a coordinator's private note
about you** (you are never shown one, and no coordinator can see another's),
and the **Invite to a season** button, which is theirs to press.

**The preview opens whether or not you are listed.** It shows what a
coordinator *would* see — deciding whether to list yourself is exactly when you
want to look.

## Blocking a festival

**There are two places to block a festival and they do different amounts of
work.** This card is the quieter one. The other is the ⋯ menu on an invitation
itself, which blocks the festival *and* closes every invitation from it you have
not answered — see
[Blocking a festival from here](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/your-invitations.md#blocking-a-festival-from-here).
Both write to the same list.

The **Blocked festivals** card sits beneath Directory listing, with a count
beside its title — **None**, or **2 blocked**. Its one row, **Festivals you've
blocked**, lists each festival you have blocked with the date you blocked it
and an **Unblock** button. With none: "No festivals blocked." Under the list,
**Block a festival**.

**Block a festival** opens a dialog with a search over **every festival on
FilmScorecard**, minus the ones you have already blocked. Pick one and press
**Block festival**.

**Nothing is written until you press Save changes** on the tab's Save bar.
Blocking and unblocking are staged on the card — a festival you have just
blocked shows no date until then — and **Discard** puts the list back as it
was. Once saved, the line at the foot of the tab reads **All changes saved.
Last saved** and the date of your newest block, or just **All changes saved.**
once you have unblocked everything. See [How saving works](#how-saving-works).

What a block does, exactly:

- **That festival can no longer invite you to a season.** Every route is
  covered: an invitation to your email address, an invitation from the judges
  directory, and re-inviting you to a season you previously declined or were
  removed from.
- **The festival is never told.** There is no notice, no mark on their screen
  and no way for them to ask. What they see is a neutral refusal that reads the
  same as a judge who simply left the directory.
- **It does not hide you.** Your profile stays in the directory exactly as
  before — **the listing switch is what governs whether you can be found**, and
  a blocked festival can still read your card. Blocking stops the invitation,
  not the reading.
- **It does not touch a season you are already judging.** You stay on the
  roster, you keep your work, and nothing about that festival's access to your
  profile changes.
- **A block made here does not cancel an invitation you have already been
  sent.** One already waiting on your
  [Invitations tab](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/your-invitations.md) stays answerable; this block only
  stops the next one. **Block from the invitation itself if you want it closed
  as well** — that route declines every unanswered invitation from that
  festival, across all its seasons.
- **It does not stop you applying to them.** A blocked festival's open calls are
  still on your board and you can still file an application against one — the
  block is about invitations coming the other way.

**Unblocking takes effect immediately** — that festival can invite you again as
soon as you save. It also changes what you see: **any invitation from them that
was reading "Festival blocked" goes back to reading plain "Declined"**. Nothing
about those invitations changed; the pill is drawn from this list, live.

**The list is every festival on the platform, and nothing marks the ones you
work for.** Read the name carefully before you block it.

(Blocking a *festival* here is a different thing from blocking one *person*
in your [Messages](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/messaging-festival-staff.md#blocking-someone) — this one
stops invitations from a festival; that one stops one staff member's
conversation with you.)

## What I judge

On Your profile, the **What I judge** card's pencil opens one card, five
sections, one **Save what you judge** button. **All of it is a
preference, not a filter** — the line at the top of the card says so:

> Coordinators sort candidate judges by how well this matches a category. It is
> a preference, not a filter: a coordinator can still assign you work outside
> it.

That is now true of every section on the card, the FilmFreeway box included —
see [FilmFreeway account](#filmfreeway-account) for what changed.

### Judge type

First on the card: two cards, **Creative judge** ("Scores submissions on the
creative scorecard.") and **Technical reviewer** ("Scores submissions on the
technical scorecard."). Tick one or both; **at least one is required**, and
saving with none gets:

> Pick at least one judge type. A judge with no type cannot be invited to file
> anything.

It is the same pair step 1 of the setup flow asks. It is what the
[judges directory](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/judges-directory.md) prints beside Paid or Volunteer on
your card and in your profile panel, what its **Judge type** filter narrows
by, and what a festival's invitation form starts from when they invite you
from there — they can change it before they send. **It does not decide your
role on a season**: that is on the invitation you accept, and it is the Role
column of the [Festivals tab](#festivals) once you have.

### Formats

Two cards — **Film** and **Screenplay**, with the same descriptions the setup
steps used. **At least one is required**, and saving with none gets:

> Pick at least one format. A judge with no format cannot be assigned anything.

**Your formats and languages are used one other place**: they are what the
[open-call application form](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/applying-to-an-open-call.md#what-is-filled-in-for-you)
starts you off with on its Coverage step. Changing your answers there never
changes them here.

### Genres

The same fixed list of 29 genres every festival uses, with a search box, a
monospace **"6 of 29 picked"** count, **Clear**, and a **Select all 29** tick
box that reads **Select all 4 matching** while a search is running.

**A search narrows what you can see and nothing else.** Selecting the matches,
then clearing the search, leaves those picks alongside everything you had
already chosen. A search matching nothing shows a block naming what you typed,
the line "The genre list is fixed across every festival on FilmScorecard.", and
**Clear search**.

**Zero genres is allowed here**, unlike the setup step that first asked you.

### Languages

The same 12 languages, as pills, with **Select all 12** and a count. **Zero is
allowed.**

### FilmFreeway account

The last section on the card opens with one line saying what the answer is
for:

> Festivals see this answer when they invite you. Each festival decides on your
> invitation whether submissions viewable only on FilmFreeway are offered to
> you.

Then a single tick box: **I have a FilmFreeway account**.

- **Ticked**, a field appears for your FilmFreeway profile or email (200
  characters, optional), with the line "Optional, and stored for now: no screen
  shows it to a coordinator yet."
- **Unticked**, a note appears instead: "Submissions whose only screener is on
  FilmFreeway are not offered to you unless a festival turns FilmFreeway access
  on for you. A coordinator can still send you one." **Unticking also clears
  the handle you had typed**, on the server, so nothing stale is left behind.

**This changed: the box no longer decides what you are given.** It used to be
the one answer on this tab that gated your queue — with it unticked, a
submission whose only screener link was a FilmFreeway one was not offered to
you, and ticking it brought those submissions back. **That decision now
belongs to each festival.** On every season you judge, the festival holds a
**FilmFreeway access** switch for you — set when they invite you, and
changeable afterwards by their coordinators — and it is that switch, not your
box, that decides whether FilmFreeway-only submissions reach you:

- **With the festival's switch off** — which is where every new place starts —
  a submission whose only screener is on FilmFreeway is **not offered to you**
  on that season. Not ranked last, not saved for later: it is out of your queue,
  out of your open count and out of the film you are shown next, and nothing on
  screen says a film was held back. Your total is simply smaller, the same way
  it is smaller when a festival scopes you to two categories.
- **With the switch on**, those submissions are offered to you like any other.
- **Ticking or unticking this box changes neither.** Tick it with the switch
  off and nothing arrives; untick it with the switch on and nothing leaves.
- **A film you are already holding stays yours** if a festival turns the switch
  off in the middle of a sitting — it is still on your judging home and still
  opens; score it, file it, skip it or hand it back exactly as normal. What you
  cannot do is pick it up again once you have let it go, until the switch is on
  again.
- **A submission with no screener link at all is a different problem**, and you
  are offered it whatever the switch says. Report the missing link rather than
  scoring blind — see [Scoring a film](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/scoring-a-film.md).
- **A coordinator can still hand you one** you reported a problem with. The
  panel where they decide tells them the film's only screener is on FilmFreeway
  and that you have no FilmFreeway access on that season, and that it appears
  if they turn access on for you. The film waits in your queue and appears the
  moment they do. See [A film came back to you](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/a-film-came-back-to-you.md).

**What your answer does now is inform that decision.** A festival inviting you
reads it beside their switch as "Judge says: has a FilmFreeway account" or
"Judge says: no FilmFreeway account", and its coordinators read the same line
on your row of their roster afterwards; if you are listed in the directory, it
is also the **FilmFreeway account** cell on your profile — see
[View public profile](#view-public-profile). **It never sets their switch for
you.** Keep it accurate all the same: a festival that reads "no FilmFreeway
account" has no reason to turn access on for you, and a festival that turns it
on for a judge who cannot open the screener has put films in a queue that
cannot be scored.

**You are not shown the switch**, anywhere — not on your judging home, not on
the [Festivals tab](#festivals), not on an invitation. If a festival's
FilmFreeway-only submissions are not reaching you and you think they should,
ask that festival's coordinator to turn FilmFreeway access on for you; it takes
effect on your next visit.

**Your judging home reminds you while the box is unticked.** An amber notice
headed **No FilmFreeway account on file** reads "Festivals see this answer when
they invite you, and decide whether submissions viewable only on FilmFreeway
can reach you. Add yours so they can.", with two links: **Add it in your
account**, which opens this tab, and **Dismiss**, which hides the notice on
that browser for a year. Ticking the box removes it everywhere.

## Availability

### The Availability card

| Row | Notes |
| --- | --- |
| **Weekly review capacity** | A number from **1 to 200**, in a box followed by "submissions per week". The box takes digits only, three at most. Out of range: "Enter a number between 1 and 200.", in place of the open-count line under the box. |
| **Preferred turnaround** | Within 3 / 5 / 7 / 10 days. **Within 5 days** unless you change it. |
| **Note to coordinators** | 300 characters, with a count under the box — "42 of 300 characters" — that turns red past the limit. Over it, the Save bar will not save until you shorten the note. |
| **Accessibility needs** | 1000 characters. "Anything a festival should arrange so you can review comfortably. Stored for now: no festival screen shows it yet." |

**All four wait for the tab's Save bar** — see
[How saving works](#how-saving-works).

Under the capacity box, a line: **"You have 0 open assignments right now."**
That number is meant to be work you have **claimed and not yet filed**, but the
films you take with **Start scoring** are not counted in it, so **it is zero for
everybody today** — see [What does not work yet](#what-does-not-work-yet).

**Capacity and turnaround cap nothing.** They are what a coordinator reads
before assigning; no rule in FilmScorecard counts against either.

**Your capacity does reach one form**: it fills in the "films a week" box when
you apply to an open call, **but only if it is already between 1 and 20**. A
capacity above 20 leaves that box empty rather than being cut down to fit. See
[Applying to an open call](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/applying-to-an-open-call.md#what-is-filled-in-for-you).

**None of these four is displayed to anybody yet**, and the card says so: they
are stored with your account, but **no screen in FilmScorecard shows them**, not
the judges directory and not a season's judge panel. Say anything urgent in an
email as well.

### Pausing new assignments

The second card, **Pause new assignments**, is one row with an amber switch —
**Taking new assignments** or **Paused** beside it — and **the switch is the
save**: there is no button, it is not part of the Save bar, and it takes effect
the moment you flip it.

> Takes effect immediately at every festival. Assignments already open stay
> with you and keep their deadlines.

**The row's sentence names who is told**, whether the switch is on or off:
"Coordinators at Riverside Shorts Festival and Northgate Documentary Prize see
when you're paused, and are emailed once when you pause." With no active roster
anywhere: "You're not on any festival's active roster, so pausing emails
nobody."

While it is on:

- **A second row appears — "Resume automatically on"**, a date box, with
  "Leave empty to stay paused until you resume." Changing the date saves
  immediately too.
- **An amber banner sits at the top of every tab**, headed **New assignments
  paused**, reading "Since Aug 12, 2026. Your 2 open assignments are
  unaffected.", with a **Resume now** button. Resume now is the same action as
  the switch.

What a pause actually does:

- **No new submission is offered to you, at any festival.** Your queue on
  [your judging home](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/your-judging-home.md) empties.
- **Work you have already started stays yours**, keeps its deadline, and stays
  scorable.
- **Coordinators at every festival you are active on are emailed once**, naming
  the festivals they can see and how many open assignments you hold. They are
  told no action is needed.
- **Your card in the judges directory reads "Paused, not taking new work"**,
  with an amber dot, and you are excluded from the directory's "Available now"
  filter.
- **Festivals can still invite you**, and you can still accept. A pause is
  about new work on seasons you already judge, not about being found.
- **You can still apply to open calls**, and a pause is not mentioned on an
  application. It is about the work you already have, not about the work you are
  asking for.
- **It does not touch what you are owed.** Your [Earnings](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/earnings.md)
  record — and your [pay statement](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/your-pay.md) for a season you are paused
  on — is still there and still says the same thing. A pause is about new
  work, not about money already earned.
- **A coordinator pausing your access to one season is a different thing**, set
  by them and cleared by them. Both show as one **Paused** pill on the
  Festivals tab; resuming your account does not clear theirs.

Resuming — the switch, or **Resume now** — clears the pause and the resume
date together. **Nobody is emailed when you resume.**

#### The automatic resume date

**Nothing happens on that date; the pause simply stops counting.** When the date
arrives, the banner is gone, the switch is off, your queue is open and your
directory card is green again — all on the next screen you open. There is no
notice and nobody is told.

Two consequences worth knowing:

- **Pausing again after an automatic resume is a new pause**, dated today, and
  **your coordinators are emailed again** — they were never told about the
  resume.
- **The date box starts empty when you pause again**, rather than carrying the
  date that ended the last pause.

A date in the past is not refused: it simply means you are not paused.

## Festivals

Two read-only tables and one thing you can do.

**Each table runs edge to edge inside its card**, under the card's title and
sentence, with a line beneath it counting the rows. A long table scrolls inside
its card with its heading row held at the top, and on a narrow screen it
scrolls sideways with the **Festival** column pinned to the left.

### Festivals you judge for

One row per season you hold a live place on — **active seasons and seasons a
coordinator has paused you on**. Invitations you have not answered, and places
that ended, are in the second table instead.

| Column | What it holds |
| --- | --- |
| **Festival** | The festival's name, over a monospace line with the season, the year, and the date you joined. |
| **Role** | One pill per role you hold — Creative judge, Technical reviewer, or both. |
| **Status** | One pill. See below. |
| **Assigned** | Your open assignments on that season, or an em dash on a closed one. |

The status pill, in the order that decides it:

| Pill | When |
| --- | --- |
| **Season closed** (plain, on a quiet row) | That season's judging window has passed. It outranks everything else — there is nothing to be paused about. |
| **Leave requested** (amber) | You asked to leave and the coordinator has not resolved it. |
| **Paused** (amber) | You paused your account, **or** the festival paused your place. **One pill, never two**, because the effect is the same. |
| **Active** (green) | Everything else. |

Under the table, a line counting the rows: "3 festivals, 2 seasons open. Sorted
by festival name."

Empty: "No festival has added you to a season yet."

**Nothing in this table says what a season pays or what you are owed** — a
closed season's row looks the same whether it paid you or not. That is on
[Earnings](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/earnings.md), one row up in the navigation. **Nor does it say
whether a season has turned FilmFreeway access on for you** — see
[FilmFreeway account](#filmfreeway-account).

### The row menu

The three-dot menu at the end of a row:

- **Open this festival** — your judging home for that festival.
- **Ask to leave this festival**, in amber, with the consequence under it:
  "Your 3 open assignments go back to the coordinator.", or "A coordinator
  confirms it." when you hold none.

**A closed season offers no leave item**, and neither does a row you have
already asked to leave.

### Asking to leave

**Asking is not leaving.** The dialog says so:

> The coordinator is notified and confirms it. Until they do you stay on the
> season and keep your open assignments. Anything unscored is reassigned once
> they accept.

Press **Send request** and:

- **The row's status becomes Leave requested** and the leave item disappears
  from its menu. **The row does not vanish** — you are still on the season.
- **You keep scoring.** Nothing about your access changes until the coordinator
  acts.
- **The coordinators who can reach that season are emailed**, told how many
  open assignments you hold and that removing you from the season's Judges
  screen is how they confirm it.
- **There is nothing more for you to do, and no way to cancel it** from this
  screen. Ask the festival directly if you change your mind.

The dialog stays open if something goes wrong, with the reason inside it:

| The message | What it means |
| --- | --- |
| "You have already asked to leave this festival." | A request is already standing on that row. |
| "That season has closed." | Its judging window passed while you had the dialog open. |
| "Your request could not be sent. Try again." | Anything else. Nothing was written. |

**One thing to settle before you ask, if the season paid you**: the coordinator
confirms a leave request by **removing you from the season**, and removal takes
your [pay statement](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/your-pay.md) for it away with everything else — the
season drops off your [Earnings](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/earnings.md) screen too. Print the
statement first if you want your own copy of what you were owed — the festival
keeps theirs either way.

**Asking to leave is not the same as withdrawing an application.** This one is
for a season you are already on. An application you filed and want to take back
is withdrawn from the call's own page — see
[Withdrawing an application](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/applying-to-an-open-call.md#withdrawing-an-application).

### Invites and requests

A read-only record, newest first: **every invitation a festival sent you**, and
**every application you filed against an open call**.

| Kind | Outcome column |
| --- | --- |
| **Invite** | **Pending** while unanswered, then **Accepted**, **Declined**, **Removed** or **Revoked** (an offer withdrawn before you answered). |
| **Your request** | **Under review**, **Countered**, **Accepted** or **Declined**. |

**Nothing here is a control.** You cannot answer an invitation from this table —
**the [Invitations tab](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/your-invitations.md) of your inbox is where you do
that**, and it is the fuller record of the two: it carries what the invitation
pays, who sent it and its deadline. You cannot withdraw an application from this
table either; that lives on the call's own page, and on the application's.

Four things about the **Your request** rows:

- **"Under review" covers being shortlisted too.** Only a reply naming a
  different rate shows as **Countered**.
- **Countered stays Countered after you answer it.** This column reads the
  festival's own status for your application, and answering a counter does not
  move it — the row says a negotiation happened, not whose turn it is.
- **The figures, and the buttons for answering them, are on the application
  itself** — the call's address with `/apply` on the end, which is also what the
  festival's email links to. See
  [When the festival replies with different rates](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/applying-to-an-open-call.md#when-the-festival-replies-with-different-rates).
- **A withdrawn application leaves no row.** Withdrawing deletes it, so it
  disappears from this table with everything else.

**The rows arrive as soon as you apply.** See
[Applying to an open call](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/applying-to-an-open-call.md).

Under the table, a line counting the rows: "7 invites and requests, newest
first."

Empty: "No invites or requests yet."

## Notifications

One row per event — eight of them, in three groups — each with an **Email**
switch and an **In-app** switch, then a row each for the two cadence selects.
The line at the top names the address everything goes to.

**There is no Save button: every switch and both selects save the moment you
change them.** Under the card a line reads **Saving…** while a change goes
through, then **All changes saved. Last saved** and the date. A change that is
refused flips back, with the reason at the top of the card.

| Group | Events |
| --- | --- |
| **Assignments** | New submission assigned to you · An assignment was withdrawn · Deadline approaching |
| **Scorecards** | A scorecard was returned to you · A scorecard was accepted |
| **Festivals and messages** | Message from a coordinator · Invite to judge a season · A season opened or closed |

Under them: **Queue digest** (Every morning at 8:00 AM / Weekly on Monday /
Off) and **Deadline reminders** (1 day before / 3 days and 1 day before / 7, 3
and 1 day before).

**Until you change anything on this tab, everything is on** — both switches on
every row — with a daily digest and 3-and-1 reminders, and the line under the
card reads just **All changes saved.**, with no date.

### One row is locked, and four switches work

**Invite to judge a season cannot be turned off for email.** Its Email switch
is on and cannot be moved, the row's own sentence reads "Cannot be turned off
for email.", and the server puts it back on whatever a browser sends.
Invitations, and the messages that settle one — an accepted
application, a counter, a declined application, a withdrawn invitation — are
how a festival reaches you about something you have to answer, so FilmScorecard
does not let them be silenced.

**Exactly four settings on this tab change anything today:**

- **The Email switch on "Message from a coordinator".** Turn it off and a
  coordinator's direct message no longer reaches your email inbox.
- **The In-app switch on "A scorecard was returned to you".** Despite the row's
  name, what it controls today is the notice that lands in
  [your inbox](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/your-inbox.md) **when a coordinator sends a *film* back to
  you** after you reported a problem with it. Switched off, that notice is
  simply never created — and it does not arrive late when you switch it back
  on. The email
  about a returned film is separate and comes regardless. See
  [A film came back to you](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/a-film-came-back-to-you.md). **A scorecard the
  festival sends back to you for changes is not covered by it** — that creates
  no inbox notice at all; it arrives by email and on your judging home's
  Returned list.
- **The In-app switch on "New submission assigned to you".** It controls the
  **"Your categories changed"** notice in your inbox when a festival changes
  which categories you judge and **adds at least one**.
- **The In-app switch on "An assignment was withdrawn".** The same notice, when
  a change **only takes categories away**.

Switching off either of those last two stops only the inbox notice. **The email
about your categories changing comes regardless**; nothing on this tab turns
it off.

Everything else — the other Email switches, the rest of the **In-app**
switches (Message from a coordinator's included), and **both selects** — is
stored and drives nothing. The [inbox](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/your-inbox.md) those In-app switches
feed is live, but the returned-film
notice and the categories notice are the only ones FilmScorecard writes today; there is still no queue digest
and no deadline reminder in this release. Set them if you like; they are what
those senders will read when they arrive.

**Nothing here controls the Invitations tab.** An invitation appears on it and
counts towards your inbox badge whatever this tab says — there is no
notification to switch off, because nothing is being sent to you.

**No setting here has anything to say about open calls.** Nothing emails you
when a call is posted, and nothing emails you when you apply or withdraw —
**or when you answer a festival's counter**. The one open-call email that does
reach you is the festival's reply naming different rates, which is not on this
tab either.

**And nothing here has anything to say about your pay.** No email and no inbox
notice is sent when a festival approves your work, records a payment or voids
one; your [Earnings](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/earnings.md) screen is a page you open, not a message
that arrives. The one exception is an invoice you sent: you are emailed when
the festival returns it or records a payment against it, whatever this tab
says — see [Sending an invoice](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/sending-an-invoice.md#what-you-are-emailed).

**Nor about FilmFreeway access.** Nothing tells you when a festival turns it
on or off for you; the films simply arrive, or stop arriving, on your next
visit.

## Signing out

**Sign out is in the menu behind your name**, top right, on the account screen
and on your judging home. It confirms first, naming the address you are signing
out of. That menu holds **Your profile**, **Your account**, **Help and docs** —
which opens these guides in a new tab — and **Sign out**. **Your projects**
joins them, under Your account, once you own a film or screenplay of your own
on FilmScorecard — see [Your projects](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/your-projects.md).

The circle beside your name is **always your initials**, never your photo.

## What does not work yet

Stated plainly so you are not left waiting:

- **Sign-in and security, and payments.** There is no email-change, password,
  two-factor, session or deactivation screen, and no payout account, tax
  details or fee record. An address like `?tab=security` opens Directory
  listing. **Paid or Volunteer, on the Directory listing tab, is the only thing
  on this screen
  that touches money** — and it is a statement of how you judge, not an
  amount and not an account. The rates on an open-call application are
  separate figures, and no money moves through FilmScorecard for either. What a
  festival has actually recorded owing and paying you is on
  [Earnings](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/earnings.md).
- **Your open assignment count is zero for everybody**, on the Availability
  card and in the Assigned column. The films you take with **Start scoring**
  are not counted in it, so it stays at zero however many you are holding.
- **Most of the Notifications tab.** Four switches do something — the
  coordinator-message email, and the In-app switches behind the returned-film
  notice and the categories notice — and the rest, both cadence selects
  included, is stored for later. See [Notifications](#notifications).
- **Your note to coordinators and your accessibility needs are displayed
  nowhere.** They are stored, and festivals you judge for are allowed to read
  them; no screen shows them. The same is true of your preferred turnaround,
  your weekly capacity and your phone number.
- **Your FilmFreeway handle is shown to nobody.** The yes-or-no answer is
  shown — as the FilmFreeway account cell on your directory profile, and to a
  festival's coordinators as "Judge says: …" beside their FilmFreeway access
  switch, in the invite dialog and on their roster — but the handle you typed
  under it is stored and displayed nowhere at all. Tell a coordinator directly
  if you want them to use it.
- **Any view of which festivals have turned FilmFreeway access on for you.**
  The switch is theirs and lives on their screens; yours show only its effect.
  See [FilmFreeway account](#filmfreeway-account).
- **Your photo is not shown to coordinators**, including in the preview drawer
  and the directory, which draw initials.
- **A street address, a postcode or anything nearer than a city.** Country,
  region and city are the whole of where you are, and nothing measures distance
  between them.
- **Cancelling a leave request.** Ask the festival.
- **Countering what an invitation offers you.** Accept, decline and block are
  the three answers there are; see
  [Your invitations](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/your-invitations.md). **An open-call application is where
  figures are negotiated** — see
  [Applying to an open call](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/applying-to-an-open-call.md#when-the-festival-replies-with-different-rates).
- **Answering a counter from this screen.** The **Invites and requests** table
  reports that one arrived and nothing more; the answering is on the application
  itself.