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How the scorecard works.

Every film in the Screening Room is read within a day of arriving, by the same reader, against the same five attributes, on the same scale. No judges. The month's pick follows the scores, so the scores are published, and so is how they are made.

What is read

A machine reads what a machine can read of a film: the title and synopsis you gave, the details (running time, year, genre, the credits), the frames the platform publishes for the film, and the caption transcript when the platform has one. It cannot watch the film through, and it cannot hear it. Every scorecard says what it read and what it could not, and an attribute it could not read scores nothing rather than a guess.

The five attributes

  1. Story. Does it hold you: someone wants something, something turns, the ending lands. Read from the synopsis and the transcript.
  2. Picture. Framing, light, colour and movement: does the picture carry the story on its own. Read from the frames.
  3. Words. Dialogue, narration or titles: do they sound like people, and say only what is needed. Read from the transcript.
  4. World. Places, faces, clothes and things: does the world convince, at any budget. Read from the frames and the synopsis.
  5. Voice. A point of view only this filmmaker has: the choice a hundred other films would not have made. Read from all of it.

The scale

  • 1 not yet
  • 2 getting there
  • 3 works
  • 4 strong
  • 5 exceptional

Most films by people starting out sit at 2 to 4. A 5 is rare and has to be earned by something the reader can point at. A 1 means the attribute is missing, not that it is modest. A blank means it could not be read.

The note

Under the scores, the filmmaker gets a note that only they see: what works, named exactly, then one thing to try on the next film.

What it is not

It is not a verdict on you, and it is not the last word on the film. It is the same reading every film gets, on the day it arrives, so that the picks are seen to follow something published and a filmmaker can compare one film with the next. A scorecard never goes anywhere but the film's own page.