Your scorecard

You entered a film or a screenplay in a festival that runs on FilmScorecard, judging for your submission has finished, and the festival has sent you a link to your scorecard — or handed it to you some other way. This page covers what that page holds before you unlock it, what unlocking adds, and what is never on it at all.

You do not need an account. The button in your results email signs you in, and the nine-character access code printed under it opens the page on any other device. See Getting into your scorecard for the button, the code and everything that can go wrong with them.

One category, one scorecard. If your film was judged in more than one category, each one is its own panel, its own score and its own scorecard, bought on its own. The page shows one category at a time and everything on it — the score at the top, the price, the tables, the share card — follows the category you have chosen.

The email

It comes from "the festival via FilmScorecard", and its subject is "Your scorecard from the festival is ready". When the festival has included a promo code, the code and what it takes off are in the email itself, not in the subject.

From the top:

1. Your festival, the season and "Judging has closed", then "The judges have finished reviewing your film.", and a few lines saying your results are ready on FilmScorecard and that final decisions have not been made yet.
2. Included free — Your final score. "See how your film scored. This part is always free." and the See your final score button, which signs you in and opens your submission page with your scorecard waiting at the top — see Where the buttons take you. The same link is printed under it.
3. Your access code — the nine characters to type on another device, and "This code expires in 30 days. Asking for a new one replaces it." See Getting into your scorecard.
4. What happens next — only while the festival's notification date is still ahead: that date, "Notification date. The festival makes its final decisions, and every submitter hears whether their submission was selected."
5. Premium feature — the full scorecard, with its price: "One-time fee. Per category, per festival season. No subscription." If you asked the judges questions, your questions are quoted, because the full scorecard holds their answers. A list headed What's in it names only what your scorecard actually has — answers to your questions, your score on every criterion, the technical and creative breakdown, each judge's notes, your place in the category (only where the category has an award), and a copy to keep. Then "It's completely optional, and it won't affect your score." — buying has no effect on selections or awards, and the payment goes to the festival, less FilmScorecard's service fee — and an Unlock the full scorecard for $29.99 button.
6. At the foot, a line saying you can reply to reach the festival (when the festival has a reply address), a word about FilmScorecard, why you are getting the email, and — when the festival has given one — its postal address.

• Nothing in this email is a score. It carries no result, no rank, no judge's name, no count of judges and nothing a judge wrote — your own questions are the only words quoted.
• Both buttons sign you in. Unlock lands in the same place as See your final score; the price and what you can buy are on your scorecard, not in the email.
• The page decides what you see, whatever the email says: your score, a locked or an unlocked category, depending on what you have unlocked.
• "Final decisions haven't been made yet" is exact. A festival can release one submission's scorecard before the rest of its season, so this message can arrive while other films are still being judged — including, sometimes, before every judge has finished with yours. See If your scorecard arrived early.
• Your SUB- number is not in this email. It is on the code page and at the foot of your scorecard — quote it if you write to the festival.

It is sent to the address the festival has for your submission, which is the one you entered with. Replies go to the festival — not to FilmScorecard.

Where the buttons take you

Both buttons, and the link printed under See your final score, open your submission page, already signed in — the private page for your entry that the festival may have sent you during judging (see Your submission page). Across the top of it, a tile headed Your scorecard is in:

1. Press the tile, or its View scorecard button.
2. Your scorecard opens.

• Your scorecard has a way back. ← Your submission, in the bar at the top of your scorecard, opens your submission page again. It is there whenever you can open that page — always, unless the festival has withdrawn or disqualified your film.
• A results email sent before October 10, 2026 still opens your scorecard directly, as it always did.
• Your receipt email is different: its Read your scorecard opens your scorecard itself.

With a promo code

A festival can include a promo code when it releases scorecards. The email then shows it: the price struck through beside the price with the code, the code itself in a box with what it takes off — "20% off", "$5.00 off" or "Free" — and "Already applied when you unlock from this email.", with the code's last day when it has one. Every link in the email carries the code — See your final score, the link printed under it and Unlock alike. They open your submission page, and View scorecard there opens your scorecard already priced with the code; every checkout you open from it starts with the code applied, so there is nothing to type; see Arriving with a promo code and A code from your results email.

The figures are worked out for you as the email is sent, for the first category you have not unlocked. If the code has stopped working by then — paused, ended or used up — the email goes without it, at the full price. And if you have told that festival to stop sending you offers, your results email comes without the code too.

It is not the only email that can carry your link. A festival can also email you an offer — a promo code for your scorecard — with the same link and access code. See An offer from a festival.

Choosing a category

If your film was judged in one category there is nothing to choose and no strip across the page; skip to The top of the page.

With more than one, a row of tabs sits above the scorecard, one card per category, each naming the category over its own line — 84 / 100 · Locked, or Unlocked — or No scores · Locked for a category with no score to show (see When a category reads "No scores"). Above them, a line counting them: "3 categories · Own panel, own score, own scorecard."

On a phone the tabs are compact chips in a single row, each still naming its category over its own line; when they do not all fit across the screen, swipe the row sideways to reach the rest.

• You land on your best-scoring category, whichever it is, rather than the first one alphabetically.
• A tab press changes the whole page — the score at the top, the price, the purchase block, the tables, the pill in the bar, the share card — and it does not reload anything. Everything is already there.
• The address in your browser follows the tab. It gains a ?category= on the end, so the link you copy out of the bar opens on the category you were reading. A link with a category that no longer exists simply opens on your best-scoring one instead; it never errors.
• The Back button leaves the page rather than walking you back through every tab you opened.
• A category nobody has scored yet has no tab at all — no heading, no empty card, and nothing to pay for. A category gets its tab once a scorecard in it has been approved: a judge's creative scorecard, or the technical review or press kit check it is scored on.
• A category the festival has taken your film out of has no tab either. If you had bought it, it is still on the page, further down, under "Category (removed)" — see If a category was removed from your submission.
• Scores are never added across categories. Two categories can share one technical review between them, so a total of the two would count it twice. Each is a score out of 100 in its own right.

The top of the page

A dark block runs across the top of the page and carries the whole of the category you are reading:

• The festival's name and the season — "Spring 2026 Season" — as two pills, beside the festival's logo, or a small tile with the festival's initials when it has not uploaded one. On a phone they are a band across the very top of the dark block instead: the logo or initials, the festival's name, and the season under it.
• "Judging complete" while that category is locked, and "Official scorecard" once it is unlocked.
• Your film's title, then the line naming the category and its running time — or, for a screenplay, its page count. The category is named here only, not in the line above the title.
• Overall score — a figure out of 100 that counts up to itself when the page arrives, and a bar under it. A category with no score to show reads No scores in place of the figure.
• Once the category is unlocked, a pill reading "Reviewed independently by 3 human judges" — counting the judges who have filed in this category.
• The rank row — see Your ranks.
• The purchase block, inside the same dark block, while this category is locked and can still be bought. See Unlocking a category.

If you asked your browser or your system for reduced motion, nothing counts up or slides: every figure on the page is simply there, at its final value.

Your score is free, in every category

Every category's score is shown whether or not you have bought it — on its tab, at the top of the page when you select it, and in the "more scorecards are waiting" rows once you own one. So is your press kit, its result and every item behind it, because that is a mark on materials you supplied yourself.

What costs money is the judging behind the number:

Nothing is faked. A held score, answer or note is a blurred placeholder, and the placeholder is never the real value: the answers are not in the page at all while a category is locked, so there is nothing under the blur to uncover with a browser trick. Hovering a held cell says "Unlocks with the scorecard", and a screen reader is told what each placeholder stands in for.

Where the number comes from

Every score on FilmScorecard is out of 100, whatever the festival asked for, so the number means the same thing at every festival on the platform. It is built from up to three parts:

• the creative scorecard, which each of your judges filled in independently;
• the technical review, a checklist a reviewer marked once for your submission;
• the press kit, scored once the same way.

The festival's split is on the page, in the Weight column of the score breakdown below: Creative 60%, Technical 20%, Press kit 20%, say. It is the same split for every submission in the season.

If your category was not judged on one of the parts, the others are scaled up to fill the 100, so nobody is scored out of less than anybody else. The creative share is divided equally among the judges the festival puts on each film — on a panel of three, one judge's card is worth up to a third of the creative part.

Three consequences worth knowing:

• Your score is what has been earned so far, not a prediction. It counts the approved scorecards that exist right now, and work nobody has done yet counts as nothing rather than being guessed at.
• It can go up while a season is still being judged. Another judge's card, or a technical review that lands later, adds to it on the next load.
• A score can start before any judge has filed. If the technical review or the festival's press kit check is approved first, your score is the points that part has earned, and the judges' shares are added as they arrive. See If no judge has filed in a category yet.

Nothing you asked your judges yourself is anywhere in this arithmetic — see The questions you asked.

When a category reads "No scores"

"No scores" in place of a number means nothing approved in that category carries points. Usually the festival weights every part of the category at 0; it can also be a category whose judges have so far answered only questions that are not scored. Its scorecards are still shown to you, but they add up to no score — so there is no figure, no bar and no rank, rather than a 0 nobody gave you. The tab, the top of the page, the table's Overall band, the share card and the printed page all read No scores.

If your scorecard arrived early

A festival can open one submission's scorecard ahead of its season, and it can do that before every judge has filed. When it does:

• The number you see is what has been banked so far — the shares of the judges who have filed, plus whichever reviews are in. It is a real figure, and it is lower than the one you will end up with.
• It rises on its own as the remaining scorecards are approved. There is nothing to press and no second email; open the same link again later.
• The top of the page still reads "Judging complete", because that line describes the document rather than your panel.
• Nothing you do — paying, waiting, asking — changes the score. It follows the work your festival's judges and reviewers have had approved.

If no judge has filed in a category yet

A category can have a score from its technical review or its press kit before any creative judge has filed in it — and a few festivals judge some categories with no creative panel at all. A tab like that is shown, with its score, and reads differently:

• The Creative row in the table reads "Not judged yet", with a dash for its points ("— / 60"). A category judged with no creative scorecard has no Creative row at all.
• There is no questions card, no free preview and no written notes card — there are no judges' answers to list or count.
• There is no "Reviewed independently by…" pill.
• There is nothing to buy in that category. It reads Locked, but it has no purchase block, no "What happens when you unlock", no "Before you decide" and no closing band, because what a scorecard sells is the judges' work. It goes on sale once a judge's creative scorecard in it is approved — and a category judged with no creative scorecard is never on sale, so its technical review's results stay held unless the festival opens the scorecard for you. Its score and its press kit are yours either way.

Finishing your press kit and sharing your score

Under the dark block at the top of the page — and under the "more scorecards are waiting" card, when there is one — sit up to two cards, side by side when there is room. Both follow the category you are reading.

On a phone the two are compact tiles side by side, with short wording: Best shot at selection — "Scored without: Poster and Synopsis." — over a Finish press kit button, and Show it off — "Post it, or send a link." — over Share your score. When only one of them is drawn, it takes the full width.

Give your film its best shot at selection

Give your film its best shot at selection

Your press kit counts toward selection, and yours was scored without: Poster and Synopsis. Selections haven't been announced yet, so there's still time to add them.

Finish your press kit

• It is there only while you can still edit your submission, which is until the festival's selection date. After that the card is not drawn.
• It names only what you can fill in yourself and what is worth points: the tagline, the synopsis, your statement, the credits, the trailer, website and Instagram links, the poster, and your name, city, region and phone number — whichever of those your press kit in this category was scored without. A check a festival coordinator makes by hand, a field you cannot change yourself and an item worth no points are never named. With nothing to name, there is no card.
• Finish your press kit takes you to Submission details on your submission page, where you fill them in. Edit press kit, beside the Press kit row of the score breakdown and on the Press kit card, goes to the same place, on the same terms.
• It names what your score was given without, not what your submission lacks today. Once judging has closed your press kit mark normally keeps what your record held then (see Technical review and press kit), so an item you add afterwards can stay named here, and adding it does not change your score.

Your film earned this. Show it off.

Your film earned this. Show it off.

Turn your score into a ready-to-post image for your feed or your stories, or send your cast, crew and friends a link to it.

Share your score

Share your score opens the same share sheet as Share in the bar at the top of the page, for the category you are reading — see Sharing your scorecard. The card is there whenever that button is.

Neither card prints.

Where the score came from

A table headed "Where the 84 came from" (or, once unlocked, "How your 84 was reached"; "the score" in place of the number on a category with none) breaks the number into its parts. While the category is locked, the heading has a line beside it: "Your score is calculated from the following." Four columns: the Section; its Weight, as a percentage of the 100 — "60%"; a Score bar showing how much of its own maximum it earned; and the Points it contributed, over the most it could — "18.0 / 20" — that last column tinted and headed in indigo, because it is the one the rows add up to. The Overall score sits in a band under the table: 84.0 / 100, or No scores.

• The per-judge rows are under Creative only. The technical review and the press kit are single filings and have no panel to break down.
• A Creative row reading "Not judged yet" has its weight, an empty bar and a dash for its points: no creative judge has filed in this category so far. See If no judge has filed in a category yet.
• The bars are read against each row's own maximum — a judge's against that judge's own card — and their colour says how full they are: green at 80% and above, light green from 70 to 79, yellow from 50 to 69, orange from 40 to 49, and red below 40. A bar exactly on a boundary takes the higher colour. The bars on the questions, technical review and press kit cards are coloured the same way.
• The press kit's Points are the same on the locked and the unlocked page, and every row's points add up to the Overall score in both.

In a window wider than 640 pixels, the table scrolls sideways rather than restacking when it does not fit: the header row stays at the top and the Section column stays at the left while the rest slides under them. You can put the keyboard focus in it and use the arrow keys if you would rather read than press.

At 640 pixels wide and narrower — on a phone — it does not scroll at all. Each row puts its name, its weight and its points on one line, with its score bar under them across the full width; a judge's bar starts under the judge's name. The header row names only Section, Weight and Points, and the Overall score band stays under the last row.

The questions

A card headed "The 9 questions your judges answered" (unlocked: Responses by question). It opens with the creative section's points — "56 /60", the same figure as the Creative row in the breakdown — with the number of judges beside it and a bar under it; while the category is locked the figure is a blurred placeholder and the bar an empty grey track. When any of the questions is answered on a 1-to-10 scale, a line under that figure says so once, for all of them: "1 is the lowest score, 10 the highest." Then every question in full, in the order the festival asked them, with a small line under each saying what kind of question it is:

The questions that do not count towards your score are tinted.

Every judge has a column — Judge 1, Judge 2, and so on, as many as the festival used — and a right-hand Average column. When the window is too narrow for them all, the table scrolls sideways, with the Question column staying at the left.

At 640 pixels wide and narrower — on a phone — each question is a block of its own instead, and nothing scrolls sideways: the question and its type line (none on a 1-to-10 question) across the full width, then one small tile per judge, the answer large with "Judge 1" under it, and on the right a tinted tile for the average, marked AVG. A yes/no question's last tile carries its result ("2 of 3 yes") with no AVG mark, and a large panel's tiles run onto a second line.

While the category is locked, each cell shows a blurred placeholder, and a multiple-choice question shows a few pills with blurred text inside — never the real answer, which is not in the page. Point at one and a small label says what is behind it: Score held, Answer held, Average held, Result held, Picks held, and on a written-answer section 3 written answers held. The card's heading has "Hover any held cell to see what it is" beside it. (On a phone there is no label and no such line — the placeholders alone.) The card's last line counts the lot: "9 questions, 27 individual judge answers held against your Drama Film entry."

Once it is unlocked, every one of them resolves in place:

• Each judge's own answer. Scale answers are the whole numbers the judges chose; a judge who did not answer a question shows a dash rather than a zero.
• An Average column. Scale questions get the mean to one decimal (8.8, and 7.0 keeps its zero), and so does a single choice whose every answer is a number from 1 to 10; yes/no questions get "2 of 3 yes" instead.
• A single choice sits in its judge's column like a scale answer. Multiple choice answers span the judge and Average columns — on a phone, the width under the question — one row per judge, each labelled Judge 1, Judge 2.
• Written answers are not in this table — each written-answer question has a card of its own, just below it (see the next paragraph). A line from one of them can be quoted on your share card — see Lines from the notes.
• Two markers, at most one per row: Your highest on the question with the best average, and Widest split on the one your judges disagreed most about. A scorecard with a single scored question gets "Your highest" only.
• Unscored questions are tinted, so you can see at a glance which ones carried the number.

Each written-answer question — "Judge's comments", say — is a card of its own, directly under the questions table, headed by the question with "3 written answers" beside it:

• Unlocked, one row per judge, with that judge's answer beside their name.
• Locked, when every judge answered, the same rows, each holding two lines of blurred placeholder text. If the free preview is an answer to this question, that judge's row is tinted and carries a Free pill and the preview's text.
• Locked, when only some judges answered, the card is a single block of blurred lines instead: the locked page does not say which judges wrote.

A question the festival marked internal is not listed, and does not appear in any of the counts. You are never told about something you will not receive.

A category no creative judge has filed in yet has no questions card, and counts no questions: there are no answers behind them yet.

This card is the festival's own questions only. Anything you asked yourself is in its own card, directly under this one.

The questions you asked

If you wrote questions of your own on your submission page before judging started, a card headed YOU ASKED carries every creative judge's answer to each of them. It sits directly under the score breakdown, before the festival's own questions.

No questions, no card. Nothing is drawn, nothing is counted, and nothing on the page mentions the feature. It is not something you missed; it is something you did not use.

While the category is locked, the card is headed The two questions you sent to your judges — or "The one question", on one — with an indigo 4 answers held pill on the right. Under it, each question in full, marked Q1 and Q2, and under each question one row per judge who answered it: the judge's name and the length of their answer on the left ("Judge 1 · 62 words"), and two lines of blurred text beside it. A grey strip closes the card: "These answers do not affect your scorecard results."

• The question itself is never held. You wrote it; there would be nothing to sell you.
• The word count is free too, on a written answer, and so is the number of answers in the pill. Neither is anything a judge wrote — they are measurements of it.
• The blurred text is not the answer. It is placeholder wording, sized from the word count and capped at two lines — the answer itself never reaches your browser until you unlock, so there is nothing under the blur to read.
• On every other kind of question the same slot carries the type instead — "1 to 10", "Yes / No", "Single choice" — and a short blurred line stands in for the value.
• Hovering a row says "Unlocks with the scorecard".

Once the category is unlocked, the heading becomes Your questions, answered, the pill becomes a count — "4 answers · 3 judges · your 2 questions" — and every blurred line resolves in place:

Things worth knowing about this card:

• It is per category, like everything else on the page. A film judged in two categories shows the same two questions on both tabs, each with that tab's own judges and that tab's own numbering — and those are different people.
• "Judge 1" means the same person here as everywhere else on the tab — the same numbering as the breakdown table, the questions table and the written notes. No name, ever.
• A question with no answers on this tab is still listed, with No answers yet under it, because you asked it and a card that hid it would read as though you had not.
• None of it counts. Not the 1-to-10 answers, not anything else. Your score, your rank and your selection are worked out from the festival's own scorecard and nothing else — which is what the card on your submission page promised when you wrote the questions.

The free preview

While a category is locked, the top of its panel gives you a first look at one thing a judge wrote, free:

FIRST LOOK, FREE — Note 1 of 6

the note — whole if it is short, its opening if not

Judge 2, strengths note · Written for your Drama Film entry

• It is a strengths note when any judge wrote one — from the lowest-numbered judge who did — and otherwise the lowest-numbered judge's opportunities note.
• A short note is printed whole: up to two sentences and up to 200 characters. A longer one is cut to its first sentence or two, as many as fit in 200 characters, and ends in "…". A note whose first sentence alone runs past 200 characters, or that has no sentence punctuation at all, is cut after the last whole word that fits.
• The rest of a cut note is not in the page. It reaches your browser only once you unlock, with everything else.

When the category has no written notes

Some festivals' scorecards collect no notes: the judges write their thoughts as answers to one of the festival's own questions instead. On a category like that, the preview is one of those answers:

FIRST LOOK, FREE — Answer 1 of 3

the answer — whole if it is short, its opening if not

Judge 2, the question · Written for your Drama Film entry

• It comes from the judge who scored your film highest in this category, among the judges who wrote an answer; on a tie, the lower judge number. If that judge answered more than one written question, it is their answer to the first one in the festival's order.
• It is cut the same way as a note.
• Answers to your own questions are never the preview.
• That question's own card, further down, shows the preview too when every judge answered it: the preview's row is tinted, with a Free pill — see The questions. A question whose only answer is the one printed whole has no card while the category is locked.

Still held for you

Beside the preview, a card headed Still held for you:

Read all 6 notes under it — or, on a category with no notes, Read all 3 answers — opens the checkout dialog.

The arithmetic is exact. The figures are this category's own totals minus exactly what the preview printed — add them up and they come out.

A category whose judges wrote neither notes nor written answers has no preview, and no Still held for you card either. Nothing is missing; there was nothing to give away.

The written notes

A card headed Written notes, one row per judge: the judge and how many notes they left on the left — "Judge 1 · 2 notes" — and their Strengths and Opportunities beside it, each held as two lines of blurred placeholder text (never the note itself, which does not reach your browser until you unlock). Hovering a row says "Unlocks with the scorecard". A judge who left one note and is not the one quoted above is labelled simply Note, because the page will not guess which of the two it was.

• The previewed note appears here too, exactly as the preview prints it — with its "…" when it was cut — on a lightly tinted row, its tag in indigo with a Free pill; its sibling note stays held.
• Once the category is unlocked, it is the same card, one row per judge, with every note in full under its Strengths or Opportunities label, and each judge's line gains a word count: "Judge 1 · 2 notes · 184 words".
• The footer counts the card in both states: "6 notes · 1,240 words · about a 7 minute read".
• If the festival's scorecard does not collect written feedback at all, this card is not drawn. A scorecard that collects only one of the two kinds — only strengths, say — shows only that kind.

Answers to your own questions are not counted as notes, on this card or in its word count. They have a card of their own.

Technical review and press kit

Some categories carry a Technical review — a list of checks a reviewer marks once — and a Press kit score.

The technical review is sold with the scorecard, and it is laid out like the press kit below. Locked, the figure is a blurred placeholder over "/20" (point at it for Score held), "5 items" beside it, an empty grey bar, and every item by name with a blurred empty ring beside each (Result held). Unlocked, it shows what the section earned of its weight ("20 /20" — the same figure as the technical row in the breakdown above), "5 of 5 items passed" beside it, a bar showing how full it is, and each item with a green tick or an amber dash. When the points divide evenly, each item shows its share ("4 pts").

The press kit is yours in both states, item by item — on a locked page it carries a green Available pill — and it reads the same locked and unlocked: what it earned of the section's weight ("16 /20" — the same figure as the press kit row in the breakdown above), a line counting the items ("4 of 5 items counted"), a bar showing how full it is, and under the bar one row per item, in the festival's order. An item that did not count carries an amber line under its name: Not provided, so it did not count.

On the right of each row, the item's points — "2 / 2" when it counted, an amber "0 / 2" when it did not — and a round mark: a green tick, or an amber dash.

• A row's points are the item's own worth on the festival's press kit, not a share of the section's weight. Five items worth 2 each, four of them counted, is the 8 out of 10; the line above the bar turns that into the 16.0 of 20.
• Most items check a field on your submission — the tagline, the synopsis, the statement, the poster — and they are read afresh every time the page loads. If the festival adds a missing one to your record later, its row turns green on your next visit and your press kit mark and overall score rise with it. Once the festival's judging has closed, that stops, unless the festival has chosen otherwise: the rows keep what your record held then, and a later change to it moves neither your press kit mark nor your score.
• Some items are a check a festival coordinator makes by hand rather than a field. They read Provided when the coordinator passed them and the amber line when not, and nothing else about that check is on the page.
• "Unmapped field" in place of an item's name means the item checks a submission field that no longer exists. It never counts.
• A category that has no technical or press kit scorecard draws no card at all. Nothing is missing; the festival simply did not ask for one.
• "No technical review was filed for this submission." means the festival asked for one and nobody filled it in. Unlocking will not change that.
• "No press kit review was filed for this submission." means the festival's press kit includes a coordinator's check that has not been signed off yet. The card then shows no mark, no bar and no items, and unlocking will not change that.

A technical reviewer never saw your own questions, so nothing on this card answers them.

Your ranks

Your place in a category is one of the things a scorecard buys, and it is shown in the rank row at the top of the page:

• The number is your place in that one category — your score against every other scored film in it — so a film in two categories has two places, and they can differ. Each is shown on its own tab.
• Films are ranked against films, and screenplays against screenplays.
• Everybody is ranked on the same scale. Every score in a pool is out of 100, so the comparison does not depend on which category a film entered.
• Ties share a place, and the next place skips. Two films tied at 2 means the next film is 4th, not 3rd — so your rank and a friend's can both be true.
• Ranks are ordered on the same earned score the page shows you, so while a season is still being judged they put films that are further along above films that are not.
• A category that reads "No scores" is not ranked, and a film with no score in a category takes no place in it.

A rank is shown only once the festival releases it. The festival releases a category's ranks when every film in that category has been fully judged. Nothing you do brings it forward, no email tells you when it arrives, and a festival can take a rank back while it is still settling its results — in which case the row goes back to Calculating on your next load.

Your place in the whole season, across every category, is not on this page. It is offered as one of the choices on a share card — see Sharing your scorecard.

Your ranks are only ever shown on your own scorecard, and on a share card you choose to build from one. The festival's staff can open your scorecard, and their own screens show them how the films in each category stand; nobody else sees your position.

Unlocking a category

While the category you are reading is locked and can still be bought, the purchase block sits along the bottom of the dark block at the top of the page:

FULL SCORECARD, DRAMA FILM

$29.99

USD, one time, permanent access. Your other 2 categories are 25% off after this one.

WHAT THIS ONE PURCHASE COVERS ✓ The Lighthouse Keeper in Drama Film, at Northern Lights Film Festival, Spring 2026 ✓ Every score and answer from your judges, their 6 written notes, the 6 answers to your own 2 questions and your exact season rank ✓ PDF, share card and permanent access, for this one scorecard

Unlock for $29.99 · Read the free preview first

• One press buys one category. The dialog that opens is headed Unlock scorecard, with your film, the festival and the season under it, and lists the purchase as "Drama Film scorecard — Permanent access, PDF included" with its price. It offers the others alongside it, at 25% off each, as a tick box.
• Once you own one category, the price shown for the next is already discounted, with the full price struck through beside it and a 25% off pill.
• "Read the free preview first" jumps down to the free preview; it is not there when the category has none.
• The middle line drops the rank clause while the festival has not released any rank for your submission, because the page will not promise a number that is still being calculated. It drops "their 6 written notes" too on a category whose judges wrote no notes.
• The answers to your own questions are named on that middle line when you asked any — "the 6 answers to your own 2 questions" — and they are part of what one purchase opens. On a submission that asked nothing the clause is not there.
• A category with no creative judge's scorecard yet is not for sale, and draws no purchase block at all — see If no judge has filed in a category yet.

Everything about the price, the dialog, the trip to Stripe and the receipt is its own guide: Paying for your scorecard.

Further down the same locked page:

• "What happens when you unlock" — four steps: paying once through Stripe, the page filling in where you stand, the PDF you can download any time, and the share card.
• "Before you decide" — three or four questions you can open one at a time, answered with your own festival's name, your own judge count and the date judging closed. The fourth ("I entered more than one category. Do I pay for each?") is not drawn on a single-category submission.
• A dark band closing the page: "Three judges already did the work. Read what they said.", a line counting what is held — answers, notes, answers to your own questions if you asked any, and your exact place once ranks are out — and on the right the price ("$35.00 / USD, one time") beside a second Unlock scorecard button.
• A price bar appears at the top of the window once the block at the top has scrolled out of sight, and hides again when the closing band comes into view. On a phone, a bar sits at the bottom of the screen instead and the block's own button is hidden, so there is only ever one thing to press.

Nothing on the page changes a score. The foot of every scorecard says so, and it is true of paying, of not paying and of a festival unlocking it for you.

Arriving with a promo code

When your results email carried a promo code, every link in it brings the code with it — See your final score, the link printed under it and Unlock alike — onto your submission page, and View scorecard there carries it on to your scorecard. Nothing pops open: your scorecard opens as usual — on the best-scoring category you can still buy — and once the code has been checked, a moment after the page arrives, the price is the code's price:

FULL SCORECARD, DRAMA FILM

$23.99 $29.99 SPRING20 · 20% off

USD, one time, permanent access.

Unlock for $23.99 · Read the free preview first

• The code's price is on every Unlock control: the purchase block and its button, the closing band at the foot of the page, and the price bars at the top of the window and at the bottom of a phone screen — each with the price before the code struck through beside it.
• Every checkout you open during the visit starts with the code applied, whichever button opened it.
• The code stays in your browser's address, so a reload keeps the price. It follows you across tabs too: each category you can still buy is priced with the code when you open it.
• ← Your submission leaves the code behind. Go back to your submission page that way and on to your scorecard again, and the page shows the price without the code; press the link in the email again to bring it back.
• A code that takes the whole price off reads Free in the purchase block and the closing band, and the block's button reads Unlock free.
• A code that cannot be used shows a one-line reason under the price, and the page shows the price without the code. The checkout opens with the code in its field and the same line beside it.

The checkout with the code in it, and every message a code can show, are in A code from your results email.

What unlocking adds

A strip appears above the page:

✓ Unlocked 11 Aug 2026. Drama Film, Spring 2026. All 9 questions, 6 notes and both reviews are shown in full below. Receipt SC-50001

• The strip survives a reload, and so does everything else. It is a fact about the document from now on, not a message that flashes past.
• SC-50001 is that category's receipt number. Quote it if you ever need to ask about your scorecard; if you paid, your receipt email carries the same number. Each category has a number of its own, and the strip shows the one belonging to the category you are reading.
• The pill in the bar changes from Preview to Permanent access (a phone's bar has no pill), and Download PDF appears beside Share.
• The foot of the page gains "Permanent access, yours to keep".
• Every held cell resolves in place — same rows, same order, real values. The YOU ASKED card resolves with them, though the strip's sentence does not count it.

Unlocking is permanent and belongs to the submission, not to the browser you paid in. Enter your code on a second device and the category is unlocked there too, with nothing more to pay.

Right after you pay

Coming back from Stripe onto a category that is now open plays a short sequence over the page: Payment confirmed, the category's name, the score counting up, and a line for each thing you have just bought —

42 judge answers across 9 questions 6 written notes, 1,240 words Technical checklist, 5 items Category rank, 12 of 61 1 more scorecard unlocked

— then Show my scorecard.

• It plays once. Pressing the button clears the payment from the address, so a reload afterwards shows the page plainly. There is no way to play it again.
• You can press the button at any point; nothing is waiting on the animation.
• Every line is counted off what you actually bought. A category with no written notes gets no notes line, one with no technical checklist gets no checklist line, an unreleased rank gets no rank line, and "1 more scorecard unlocked" appears only when the same payment opened another category.
• The answers to your own questions get a line of their own, in bold, when you asked any — "4 answers to your own 2 questions".
• The rank line reads "Category rank", and the figure beside it is your place in this category.
• Reduced motion shows the finished frame with the button on it.

If one category is unlocked and another is not

The page then carries both, one per tab, and a card appears under the unlocked one:

SAME SUBMISSION, OTHER CATEGORIES — 2 more scorecards are waiting

Each category was judged by its own panel, so the score, the notes and the rank are different. Now that you own one, every other is 25% off.

Documentary — Score 79 · 3 judges, 9 questions — $22.49 $29.99 View and unlock

• Each row shows that category's score, its judge count and its question count, at the discounted price. It shows no rank: a rank is one of the things that category's scorecard buys.
• Only categories that can be bought are listed. A category with no creative judge's scorecard yet is not one of them.
• "View and unlock" moves you to that tab and takes you to the top of it. It does not open a payment dialog — you get to read the category first.
• The closing line: "Each scorecard covers one category for the Spring 2026 only. Buying one never changes how another category was judged."
• Download PDF is in the bar as soon as anything is unlocked, and printing gives you every category as it stands — the unlocked ones in full, the locked ones in their locked shape.

Rating your scorecard

Once you have unlocked a category, you can tell us what you thought of the review. Nothing asks you on arrival, unless you came from your receipt email's Rate your scorecard link (see below). Scroll down past the score breakdown — the table headed "How your 84 was reached" — and a Rate this scorecard pill appears at the bottom right of the window, or the bottom centre on a phone. It stays while you read that category.

Press it and a panel opens — a sheet rising from the bottom on a phone:

1. Press a number from 1 to 10 on any row. Every row is optional — press the same number again to clear it.
2. Press Send. It wakes up once at least one row is answered, and reads Sending… while it works.

After you send, the panel closes and the pill reads Thanks — edit your answers. Press it to see what you sent, change any of it, and send again — your new answers replace the old.

• Each category is rated on its own. A film unlocked in two categories has a pill on each tab, and each keeps its own answers.
• ✕ beside the pill hides it for that category, in this browser. Nothing is sent by hiding it.
• Rate your scorecard, the link under Read your scorecard in your receipt email, opens your scorecard on your best-scoring unlocked category with the panel already open, even if you hid that category's pill before. Close it and the pill is there. A reload does not open it again.
• It is never asked on a locked category, on a category the festival removed, or of the festival's staff reading your page.
• If sending fails — "We couldn't save your answers. Try again." — your answers stay in the panel. Press Send again.
• It never prints, and nothing on the page waits for it.

Who reads your answers. They go to FilmScorecard. The festival sees only averages, worked out across several filmmakers and shown only once at least three have answered — never your own answers. Its record of your submission does show that you sent a rating, for which category and when, but not one of your answers. Judges never see any of it. Your answers change nothing: not your score, your rank, or anything the festival decides.

If a category was removed from your submission

A festival can change which categories a submission competes in — and can take your film out of a category after you have bought that category's scorecard. What you bought stays yours.

• It stays on your page, below everything else, under "Category (removed)" — "Drama Film (removed)", say — with its own score out of 100, or No score.
• It is kept exactly as it stood the moment the category was removed, and never rescored. It carries what you could read then: the judges and their results, the festival's questions with each judge's answers and the averages, the judges' written notes, and the technical review item by item and the press kit's result. Nothing a judge does afterwards, and nothing the festival changes on its scorecards, reaches it.
• It is plainer than a live category. It has no tab, no rank, no price, no purchase block and no share card — the film no longer competes in that category, so there is nothing to place it against and nothing more to sell. The answers to your own questions are not carried in it.
• A refund takes it away. If that category's purchase is refunded in full, the removed section is no longer shown.
• Your page, your access code and your "scorecard ready" stay, even when every category you bought has been removed: the page then holds just the removed sections, under the page's own heading, with no Share button.
• If you were paying when the category was removed, the payment still goes through and unlocks the section as it stood at removal; it appears under "Category (removed)" when you come back, and your receipt names the category it was bought under.
• A removed category you had not bought is simply gone from your page. It is never offered for sale.

If the festival puts your film back into the category later, it is judged there afresh: the new category appears as a tab of its own, locked, scored from scratch and sold separately, and the removed section you bought stays where it is beside it. Ask the festival if you think a category was removed in error — see Asking a question about your scorecard.

Download PDF

Download PDF opens your browser's own print dialog, and every browser offers "Save as PDF" as a destination there. Choose it and you get a file, named after your festival, the season and your film.

Being plain about it: this is print-to-PDF rather than a file FilmScorecard builds for you. The page is laid out for it — the top bar, the category tabs, the purchase block, the price bars, the closing band, the "Before you decide" questions, the "other categories" card and the press kit and share cards under your score are all dropped, the dark block at the top becomes a bordered white one, and no card is split across two pages except the questions table, which is allowed to run on — but the dialog is your browser's and it looks different in each one.

• Every category prints, whichever tab you had open. There is no "open tab" on paper.
• A locked category prints its inventory, with the same blurred placeholders as on screen and each empty bar reduced to a hairline. The YOU ASKED card prints the same way: your questions in full, the answers as hairlines.
• The confirmation strip and its receipt number are not printed. The SUB- code and the festival's address at the foot are.

On a phone

• At 640 pixels wide and narrower, the scorecard runs edge to edge. The dark block at the top and every card under it fill the width of the screen, with no margin either side and no rounded corners — all but the press kit and share tiles, which keep theirs.
• The bar at the top drops its Preview / Permanent access / Viewing as staff pill. When ← Your submission, Share and Download PDF do not fit beside the FilmScorecard logo they move to a second line, and the bar grows to hold them.
• The festival is a band across the top of the dark block, and the category tabs are one row of chips you can swipe sideways.
• The purchase block sits under your score, and a bar fixes itself to the bottom of the screen carrying the category, the price and one button. The block's own button is hidden, so there is only ever one thing to press. The bar fits the screen with its button on one line. Once the promo code from your results email has been checked, the bar shows the code's price, with the price before the code struck through beside it in the place "USD" had. A state with no button draws no bar, and no empty band where it would have been.
• Neither table scrolls sideways. The score breakdown puts each row's name, weight and points on one line with its bar under them, and each question becomes a block with a tile per judge and an AVG tile — see Where the score came from and The questions.
• The press kit and share cards are two compact tiles side by side — see Finishing your press kit and sharing your score.
• The offer to keep your scorecard, when you are signed out, is a card under your score while the price bar holds the bottom of the screen, and a bar at the bottom otherwise. See Saving it to your account.

Saving it to your account

Saving from your scorecard is switched off for now: there is no keep bar, and no Save to your account on the code card or in the bar at the top. This section is how it works once it is turned back on.

Signed out, with the code, a bar at the bottom of the page offers to keep your scorecard in a FilmScorecard account of your own:

Keep this scorecard with the rest of your work

A free account holds every entry sent from n••••@studio.co and opens this scorecard without a code.

Not now · Keep it

• Keep it emails a code to the address the festival holds for your submission, shown masked as above — see After Keep it on a scorecard for the code screen. Entering it creates a free account on that address, with no sign-up and no beta approval, or logs you in to the one already there — see Keep it, on a scorecard, needs no sign-up at all. The first time you go on to the welcome screen — see Your first project — and otherwise straight back here, with the scorecard saved to Your projects.
• Not now hides it until you close your browser.
• On a phone, while a price bar holds the bottom of the screen, the same offer is a card under your score. The Rate this scorecard pill sits above the bar, and the bar never prints.

Every step, and what happens when the code has changed, is in Keep it, from your scorecard.

Signed in to an account the submission is not saved to, there is no bar: Save to your account sits in the bar at the top of the page, beside Share. It saves the submission to your projects and brings you back to this page as its owner, or takes you to the welcome screen the first time. "This entry is already saved to another account." means somebody else has saved it.

On the code card, Save to your account sits under Continue for everybody but the account the submission is saved to, signed out too. Signed out, it checks your code, takes you to the log-in screen, and finishes the save when you come back here. See With Save to your account.

Once the submission is saved to your account, this page opens without a code whenever you are signed in to that account, with no bar and no Save to your account. Everything on it works exactly as it does with the code — unlocking, promo codes, Share, the PDF and Rate this scorecard — and your code still works too. Once the festival has released it, your project's Scorecards tab lists each of its categories, with Open scorecard to come back here. See Your projects.

If the festival's staff open your page

Somebody signed in to the festival that judged your film can open your scorecard without a code, and the bar says so with a Viewing as staff pill (on a wider screen than a phone's). They see exactly what you see — the same masked cells on a locked category, the same real ones on an unlocked one, the same YOU ASKED card and the same removed sections.

In that staff view they get no purchase block, no Share button, no rank row, neither of the cards under your score and no Rate this scorecard pill, and no Download PDF. Contact the festival opens the form for them, but its Send message is greyed out: staff cannot send a message as you. They can also switch to a preview of the page exactly as you see it, price and Share included, where nothing they press buys, shares or saves anything for you. Their visit changes nothing about your code, your tries or your scorecard. Their visit is not recorded, and nothing they do on your page is ever recorded as yours.

What the festival sees of your visits

The festival's staff can see when you open your scorecard and what you do on it, on their own record of your submission. Nothing on the page tells you this — there is no notice and no banner — so it is set out here.

• A visit counts once the page has been on your screen for 2 seconds. A mail program that opens the link to check it is safe is not counted, and a tab opened in the background counts only once you look at it.
• Whether you opened an email is not recorded — only a visit to this page that came from one.
• Anyone using your link or your code is counted as you. Forward the email or hand somebody your code, and their visits and whatever they do on the page are recorded as yours.
• Not counted: anyone who opens your public share link, and the festival's own staff reading your page.

FilmScorecard also keeps a record of how the page is used, to run the platform and improve it: how long the page is on screen, which parts you open, the steps of a checkout you reach, whether a promo code was accepted, when something on the page fails, and whether you are on a phone, a tablet or a desktop. On the page that asks for your code it notes a wrong code, a lockout or an expired link. That record is tied to your submission, and to your account when you are signed in, but only FilmScorecard reads it: it is never shown to the festival or anyone else, never sold, and deleted after 25 months.

That record never holds your IP address, your browser's full details, anything you type into a field, your keystrokes or your mouse movement. There are no analytics or advertising cookies and no third-party tracking. The full wording is in the Privacy Policy.

What is never on your scorecard

• Who your judges were. They are Judge 1, Judge 2, Judge 3 — always, in both states, on every festival, and numbered within each category. No name, no initials, no email address. The festival cannot switch this off. That holds on the answers to your own questions too.
• Any other submission. Your ranks are numbers worked out for you; no other film's score, title or scorecard is on your page.
• Scorecards that have not been approved, or that the festival withdrew. Only work a festival coordinator has approved reaches you — which is also why an answer to one of your own questions can be missing from a tab.
• How many judges are still to come. The page names the judges who have filed and says nothing about a panel that is not finished.
• Awards. Whether a judge recommended your film for one, and what the festival decided, are not on this page at all. Your place in a category is a rank, not a result.
• Whether you were selected. Selections are the festival's own announcement and are not made from here.

The foot of every scorecard repeats the promise the page is built on:

Purchasing scorecard access never affects scores, selection or awards. All judging is completed by human judges before scorecards are made available.

Some festivals add a sentence of their own after it. Beside it sit your SUB- number, the address the festival gave for questions, and Contact the festival — see Asking a question about your scorecard.

Asking a question about your scorecard

Contact the festival, at the foot of the page, opens a form headed Talk to the festival: "Goes to the festival with your submission's details attached. They reply by email." It is the same form as on your submission page, opened with My scorecard already chosen.

1. Check the topic under What is it about — My entry, Awards (only when the festival offers award consideration), My scorecard or Something else.
2. Write your Message, up to 2,000 characters. The count beside the label shows how many you have used.
3. Press Send message. Until the answer comes back the form cannot be closed.

After it sends, the form gives way to Message sent and "The festival will reply by email to your address.", with Done and Send another.

• Your details go with it. A block headed Sent with your message lists them: your film, its SUB- number, its category or categories with the season, and Replies go to — the address the festival holds for your submission. You do not need to type any of it.
• The answer comes by email, from the festival, to that address. Nothing on this page shows a reply.
• Payments, receipts and access are FilmScorecard's, not the festival's. A grey box under the form says so: "Payments, receipts and access to a scorecard you have bought. Email [email protected]. We cannot change a score or a judge's notes; only the festival can answer for its judging."
• With no contact address for the festival, there is no form. Contact the festival is not drawn, and the FilmScorecard box sits at the foot of the page on its own. The same is true when the festival has withdrawn or disqualified your film.
• The festival's record of your submission notes that you wrote, and the topic — see What the festival sees of your visits.

When a message does not send, what you wrote stays in the box.

When the link shows "Not available yet"

A link that is real but whose scorecard is not ready yet shows a page of its own, not the code box: the same PRIVATE SCORECARD card, headed Not available yet, naming your film, its category, your SUB- number and the season, with one sentence where the code box would be:

This scorecard is not available yet. It opens once the festival releases it.

It covers two situations, and it deliberately does not say which:

• the festival has not released your scorecard yet — neither the season's scorecards nor yours on its own;
• nothing on your submission has been scored yet.

There is nothing to ask for and nothing to press. The page changes by itself the moment the festival releases — come back to the same link.

When the link shows "page not found"

That answer is kept for a link that does not point at a submission at all: mistyped, cut in half by a mail program, or not for a submission that exists. Check you copied the whole link from the newest email — or from whoever handed it to you — and if it still refuses, ask the festival.

Questions this page cannot answer

Whether you were selected, when results are announced, when your rank will be released, why a judge scored what they scored, whether a decision can be revisited, and what the festival intends to do next — all of that belongs to the festival, not to FilmScorecard. Use Contact the festival at the foot of your scorecard, or reply to your results email.

Related guides

• Your submission page — the page your results email opens on, with your scorecard at the top; where your entry's details are corrected, and the only place your own two questions can be written.
• Getting into your scorecard — the access code, the code box, every message it can show, and what to do when the code has stopped working — or was never sent.
• Paying for your scorecard — what one category costs, the checkout dialog and its bundle, the trip to Stripe, your receipt email, and the states where there is no button.
• Sharing your scorecard — the Share button: the card it builds for the category you are reading, saving the image, the public link, and turning it off.
• An offer from a festival — a festival's promo code by email, with your link and access code, and how to stop that festival's offers.
• Saving a submission to your account — keeping your festival entries in an account of your own.