Question 1

What is Create in Public?

Accepted Answer

A way for the community to back each other, and for the Higgsfield team to back you with grants. You publish an unfinished version to a public page, and people can watch it, like it, and follow along as it develops. That early support does three things for you:

Community support - likes that push you toward a shortlist slot
Direct team picks - we watch published projects during the generation window and can pull strong work into the shortlist
Grant candidacy - published projects are automatically in the running for credits

Publishing is optional, but a private project gets none of this until you submit.

Question 2

What does open source mean here?

Accepted Answer

Building in public means your project feed is visible to everyone, live, but you decide how much of the process you actually open up. The feed itself is required; the prompts and canvas are yours to toggle. Here's what's in your control: Live generation feed (always on): that's the whole point. Every generation shows up in your public feed as you make it, after a short screening buffer. Show prompts: attach your prompt text to each generation in the feed. Turn it off and people see the result, not the recipe. Show canvas: open up your full canvas, structure, folders, and assets, like an open-source project. Either way, you're sharing your process with the world, and anyone can back you as you go, including the Higgsfield team. You can adjust these anytime.

Question 3

Do I have to publish early, or can I stay private?

Accepted Answer

Either way works. You're free to keep your project in Draft and submit the finished film when it's ready, which is a perfectly normal way to enter. You can also start private and publish later whenever you feel ready. Publishing your work in progress is how you gather community support, get noticed by the team for a shortlist pick, and become a grant candidate.

Question 4

What do I need before I can publish my project?

Accepted Answer

Your project needs at least 10 generations inside it and a video cut that's 15 seconds or longer. Add a poster and a short logline, and you're ready to go public.

Question 5

How do I publish my project?

Accepted Answer

Open your project in Cinema Studio, click Submit in the top-right corner, and select Submit to Create in Public. To go live, your project needs at least 10 generations and a video of at least 15 seconds. From there you can add your cover, log line, and the film itself, then publish. Your project goes live on a public "Create in Public" page, and the official Higgsfield watermark and packshot are added to every video automatically, so that part's handled for you.

Question 6

How is the race ranking decided?

Accepted Answer

Higgsfield ranks projects on overall community engagement, which includes likes, dislikes, followers, and comments. Likes give you a boost, but they're not the only thing that counts.

Question 7

I already published, do I still need to submit?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Publishing and submitting are two separate steps, and one doesn't replace the other: Publishing puts your work in progress on a public page so it can collect support and grants Submitting is what actually enters your finished film into the competition, with the final cut, tags, team confirmation, and required social post If you publish but never submit a final by the deadline, your project drops out of the running. The public page stays up so people can still see it, it just can't win a prize or stay on the shortlist.

Question 8

Can I replace my cut later?

Accepted Answer

Yes, as often as you want. Swapping in a re-edited version of your cut is quiet: nothing is announced and there's no limit on how many times you do it, so you can keep refining freely. Posting an update is the louder option and a separate action: it publishes new media to your page (a new scene, a frame, or a note about your process) and notifies your followers. Updates are capped at once every 24 hours and only when you're actually adding new material.

Question 9

What does my project need to qualify for the race?

Accepted Answer

All of these at once: it's published and publicly viewable, its first-publish date is on or before August 31, it has at least one work-in-progress cut plus a poster and a project brief on the page.

Question 10

How many projects can I enter in the race?

Accepted Answer

Two at a time. You can publish as many projects as you want, but only two can hold a race slot at once. A slot can be moved to a different project anytime up to August 31 at 11:59 PM PT, which pulls the old project out of the race and freezes the likes it had gathered. After that deadline, slots are locked.

Question 11

Can I unpublish my project?

Accepted Answer

Yes, as long as it hasn't received a grant. Unpublishing returns the project to Draft and removes it from the ranking. The likes you collected are frozen, so if you republish before the deadline they come straight back. Your first-publish date never changes, so taking a project down and putting it back up won't reset it. The exception is grants: once a project has received one, it has to stay public until the contest ends, and the unpublish option is switched off for it.

Question 12

How do likes and dislikes work?

Accepted Answer

Any registered Higgsfield user can react to a project, with one exception: you can't react to your own project or one you're credited on. You can leave one reaction per project: either a like or a dislike, not both. Either can be switched or withdrawn anytime before the window closes. Likes are shown publicly on the project page; dislikes are private and never displayed to anyone, including the project's author. Both feed into how projects are ranked, and likes and other engagement are how the Higgsfield team spots the strongest work to back with grants.

Question 13

Is this the same as the Audience Choice Award?

Accepted Answer

No, they're two different things. Create-in-Public voting happens during the generation window and decides who gets added to the shortlist. The likes you gather here do not carry over and do not count as Audience Choice votes. What being shortlisted does is put your film in front of a much bigger audience, so the real benefit here is visibility and a shortlist slot.

Question 14

What is the deadline for publishing?

Accepted Answer

Community reactions close on August 31 at 11:59 PM PT, and up to 50 top-ranked projects are added to the festival shortlist. If two are tied, the one that published earlier ranks higher. Fifty is a maximum, not a guarantee. Shortlist positions stay marked preliminary through a compliance review, and a project can only be removed during that review for breaking a core rule, never for taste.

Question 15

What are Team Picks?

Accepted Answer

Separate from the race, the Higgsfield creative team can flag any published work-in-progress project as an Early Pick for the shortlist at any point in August, regardless of its ranking or likes. It's an early sign of interest, not a prize on its own. Final shortlist decisions still follow the festival's process. This is a second way strong work can get noticed, even if the ranking hasn't caught up yet.

Question 16

How do grants work?

Accepted Answer

There's nothing to apply for, publishing makes you a candidate automatically. We award up to 100,000 credits per project, on any day we choose. The size of a grant depends on the project: it might be 10k, 20k, 30k, or the full 100k. Credits are tied to that one project, can't be transferred to anyone else, and expire on September 3.

CREATE IN PUBLIC

100,000

Up to 50 community spots.
Higgsfield picks are extra

Up to 50

Our choice

Three steps from first scene to final cut

Publish a scene

Create in public

Deliver the final cut

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