FilmFreeway Judging: a Checklist for Festival Organisers
Official rules for a festival on FilmFreeway contain eligibility, entry details, how judging decides winners, and the voting restrictions the festival itself enforces. FilmFreeway judging runs through a custom judging form each judge fills in per submission, while rules such as Spotlight Dorado's ban on robotic voting devices protect the result.
Prepared by ContestsOnline editorial desk — Revised
What the rules must state
A festival on FilmFreeway is a contest, and its rules do the work a rubric does for a judge. Write them before the first submission arrives: eligibility, the judging method, how winners are selected, and every restriction on public voting. The rules are also where an organiser disclaims legal advice, because a rule sheet drafted for a contest is not a document a lawyer has reviewed for the organiser's own jurisdiction.
Two published examples show how specific a rule sheet should be. Spotlight Dorado, a festival listed on the platform, states plainly that robotic or automatic voting devices are prohibited. Audience Awards forbids vote-collecting websites by name in its rules. Specific bans are easier to enforce than general appeals to fairness.
The structure below works for a small festival and scales up. Each item on the list belongs in the rules document, not in an email sent later.
- Eligibility: who may enter, and who may not.
- The judging method, and how winners are selected.
- Voting restrictions where a public vote exists, including the bans on automated devices.
- What the organiser does when a rule is broken.
- Confirmation that no entry payment changes the outcome.
Set up the panel and the custom form
Judge accounts come first. FilmFreeway's own judging guide opens with a simple instruction: judges should confirm they are logged into the correct account before rating anything. An account mistake is the cheapest error to prevent and the hardest to untangle after a round closes, so confirm every judge's login before you assign a single submission.
The custom form is where filmfreeway judging becomes concrete. Create one field per criterion, give each a scale, and add a free-text comment field for remarks the score cannot carry. Keep the form identical for every submission in a round; a form that changes mid-round makes the ratings incomparable.
Assign submissions after the form is ready. Even coverage matters more than speed: five judges each rating the same share of entries beats two judges rating everything while three wait.
- Create the account and confirm each judge can log in.
- Create the custom form: scales, questions and comment fields.
- Assign submissions so no judge carries an uneven load.
- Test the form with one dummy entry before the window opens.
Rate, remark and decide
A judge opens the submission, watches or reads it, and completes the judging form: a rating for each criterion and a written comment beside it. The comment field carries what a number cannot, and it is the record the organiser returns to when two entries land close together on the scale.
Judges work independently. One judge does not see another's rating or remarks, and the submitter sees neither; the ratings and their written comments stay with the organiser. That privacy is not a courtesy, it is the mechanism that keeps a panel honest: each mark is written before anyone talks.
When the round closes, compare ratings, read the written comments, and apply the tie-break rule the rules document already named. Decide from the record, not from memory of a particular submission.
- One rating per judge per submission, written independently.
- Written comments that explain the rating in a sentence or two.
- A second round only if the organiser declared one in the rules.
- A tie-break method stated before judging begins.
Monitor the judges' progress
The dashboard shows how much of the assigned work each judge has finished, and monitoring means reading that screen on a schedule. A judge who has completed nothing after three days of a ten-day window will not complete ten days of work in two; reassign early and say so plainly.
Progress monitoring also protects the panel's trust. Judges who see the organiser checking completion tend to treat deadlines as real. The organiser who never looks discovers the gap when the window has closed and reassignment is no longer possible.
Build slack into the assignment from the start. If every judge is fully loaded, one absence forces a rushed round.
- Check completion counts at the start, the middle and the end of the window.
- Reassign a stalled judge's submissions early, not after the deadline.
- Keep one judge short of the full load so reassignment is possible.
Keep the public vote clean
Where a festival mixes a judge panel with a public vote, the vote needs its own rules. Spotlight Dorado writes them in full: robotic or automatic devices for voting are prohibited, and the sponsor reserves the right to nullify votes obtained through prohibited inducements and to disqualify the responsible entrant. The rule exists before the abuse does, which is the only moment a rule is cheap.
The line between permitted promotion and prohibited vote-collecting is real. Audience Awards allows filmmakers to buy print or digital advertisements that simply state they are participating in the program, and in the same rules refuses vote-collecting websites by name. An advertisement announces a film; a vote-collecting site manufactures votes. Write which side your festival stands on.
Publish the consequence as well as the ban. A rule without a stated penalty is a preference, and disqualification is the penalty that deters.
- State the voting restrictions in the rules, word for word.
- Ban automated devices explicitly.
- Reserve the right to nullify tainted votes and disqualify.
- Say what counts as an inducement.
What the organiser cannot decide
The platform's mechanics decide some things without the organiser. A rating is recorded when the judge submits it, and the record does not carry the judge's reasoning unless the comment field was filled in. An organiser who wants reasoning must create the field that holds it.
Judge privacy is structural, not a setting the organiser toggles. Submitters never see ratings or private remarks, and judges do not see each other's work. The organiser decides who joins the panel and what the form asks, and then the structure decides the rest.
And the honest limit: in any public vote, the organiser cannot look inside a voter's head. What an organiser can do is what Spotlight Dorado does, namely prohibit automated devices in writing, reserve the right to nullify tainted votes, and apply it.
- The platform records when a rating was submitted, not why.
- A judge's written remarks belong to that judge until the round closes.
- The organiser cannot see into a public voter's motive.
| Item | The judge | The submitter | The organiser |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ratings | Writes own only | Not visible | Sees all of them |
| Written comments | Writes own only | Not visible | Sees all of them |
| Other judges' work | Not visible | Not applicable | Sees all of it |
| Judging form | Fills it in | Not visible | Creates and edits it |
| Assigned submissions | Sees own list | Sees own entry status | Assigns and reassigns |
Procedure
-
Confirm every judge account
Before anything is assigned, have each judge log in and confirm the account is the correct one. FilmFreeway's judging guide starts here for a reason: a rating submitted from the wrong account attaches to the wrong panel and cannot be quietly moved.
-
Create the custom judging form
Open the form editor and build one custom form for the round: a scale per criterion and a comment field per criterion. Test it against one dummy submission. The form you publish is the form every judge completes, so fix the wording before the window opens.
-
Assign submissions to judges
Allocate entries so each judge carries an even share and no entry depends on a single unavailable judge. Assignment is done from the judging area of the dashboard, and it can be adjusted while the window is open.
-
Have judges rate and comment on each submission
Each judge opens a submission, completes the form with a rating and a written comment, and moves on without seeing anyone else's marks. Independent scoring is the default, and the comment field is the written record of why each rating fell where it did.
-
Monitor progress and enforce the rules
Check the dashboard's completion counts on a schedule and reassign stalled work early. When the round closes, apply the published rules, including the bans on automated voting and inducements, and the stated right to nullify tainted votes and disqualify.
Readers ask
How do I create a Custom Judging Form?
Yes, you can build one, and you build it before any entry reaches the panel. In the festival dashboard, open the form editor and add the questions, scale fields and comment fields you want judges to complete. Keep the form short enough that a judge can fill it honestly for every submission.
How do I assign submissions to judges?
You assign entries from the judging area of your festival dashboard once the panel is set up. Add each judge, confirm the account details are correct, and allocate submissions so the load per judge stays even. Assignments can be adjusted between rounds of filmfreeway judging.
Where do I access the Judging Form for a submission?
Each judge reaches the form from the submission's own judging page after logging in. FilmFreeway's judging guide begins with one instruction: judges should confirm they are logged into the correct account before rating a project. From there the form sits with the submission it scores.
Can submitters see my judges' ratings or notes?
No. Ratings and private remarks written by judges stay inside the judging area and are not shown to submitters. A submitter sees the status of an entry, not the marks behind it. Judges write freely; those written comments are working records for the panel and the organiser.
Can judges see other judges' rating and notes?
No, a judge works on the submissions assigned to that judge and does not browse the marks of colleagues. Independent scoring is the point of a panel: each rating and its written comment is recorded before any discussion. The organiser sees all of it in the dashboard.
Can I monitor my judges' progress?
Yes. The dashboard shows how many assigned submissions each judge has completed, so monitoring is a matter of checking the list rather than chasing messages. Watch progress early in the window; a judge who has not started in the first days rarely finishes the rest on time.
Notes and sources
- filmfreeway.com. filmfreeway.com/help/article/16101/judge-setup--rating-guide.
- filmfreeway.com. filmfreeway.com/SpotlightDorado.
- filmfreeway.com. filmfreeway.com/SpotlightDorado.
- filmfreeway.com. filmfreeway.com/HorrorShortFilms.
- filmfreeway.com. filmfreeway.com/HorrorShortFilms.
This page is an organiser's checklist, not legal advice, and it cannot promise that any judge, rating or contest result is protected from every abuse. ContestsOnline does not run festivals, does not judge submissions and never speaks for the festivals named here. No price is quoted and no result is promised.
Woobox's user terms require entrants to agree to the organiser's official rules, so any limit on bought or incentivised votes depends on the particular contest. Walmart's Associate Talent Search rules prohibit paying for votes and let Walmart void fraudulent votes or disqualify the entrant. The platform's terms and the organiser's rules are two documents, and a disqualification is decided under the second.
Woobox lists three warning signs of bought votes: many votes from one IP address, votes from people in different countries and regular voting intervals. Award Force says its platform detects and blocks automated or scripted voting and rate-limits rapid voting. Ordinary participation is uneven in time and independent in origin, so it shows none of those patterns; this describes how checks read a count and is not a method for passing one.
In the United States, the FTC says a sweepstakes cannot require a purchase to enter, and California says a sweepstakes must offer a way to enter without cost. Those rules concern sweepstakes entry, not votes: whether a contest allows paid votes is written in its own rules, and ViralSweep even lets organisers configure Pay to Vote. Contests whose rules bar outside votes are refused, and so are political ballots.
Once voting closes, a refund applies where votes ordered for a contest never appear in the count the contest itself displays. ViralSweep says its protections may silently flag and block a vote, and Woobox says votes from IP addresses it has flagged as fraudulent do not count even when the voter appears to have succeeded, so the displayed count is the test. An organiser's ruling or a disqualification is never refunded, and neither is an account ban such as the permanent one Gleam says a breach of its terms may bring.