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Berlin International Film Scoring Competition - Register Now

This year's video is a big challenge. It needs large, glorious orchestral sound to support, requiring high level writing skills.
 
Loïc D said:
may I add "and you've got no feedback on your submission and frankly have no idea what your money is used for (certainly not prizes)" ?
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I entered some years ago and after the contest sent a message asking for feedback. And i quickly received it, very helpful feedback.
 
Good for you, I never had any.
But I joined the contest quite long ago for 2 years and stopped applying then, maybe they changed meanwhile.
 
If anyone is interested in participating, but unsure if you want to pay the registration fee, you can actually start working on your submission and finish the entire thing by downloading the film with the sound effects from the previous competition. This way, you basically have access to what you need for free and only if you are satisfied and feel you might have a chance with your finished composition, you can register and submit it.

So you either get some nice practice with a cool film and leave it at that, or you can pay the fee and test your skills in the competition!

EDIT: A little guide how to download the video you want:
1. Go to the previous Sound Design Competition
2. Open the video you want on Vimeo by clicking the "Vimeo" text in the bottom corner (example)
3. Go to an online video dowloader like this and input the URL to the video
4. Click "Download" and you will get various quality choices and then simply download the one you want
 
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I would be very cautious with this competition.

I live in Berlin and nobody here has ever heard anything about it nor does it seem to have any connection to the city at all but just use it for the name. Also, the founder's name is not known in the Berlin music scene.

There is no proper imprint or contact possibility on the web site or the founder's web site which goes against the laws in the EU.

And the fact that you have to pay an entrance fee.

In my opinion it seems like a low cost operation to generate money for someone. A lot of red flags here.
 
Robin said:
I would be very cautious with this competition.

I live in Berlin and nobody here has ever heard anything about it nor does it seem to have any connection to the city at all but just use it for the name. Also, the founder's name is not known in the Berlin music scene.

There is no proper imprint or contact possibility on the web site or the founder's web site which goes against the laws in the EU.

And the fact that you have to pay an entrance fee.

In my opinion it seems like a low cost operation to generate money for someone. A lot of red flags here.
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It probably may be using the "Berlin" name. The company behind it is BIFS EOOD, and EOOD is a private company structure from Bulgaria if I am not wrong. Still, there are many threads in the forums of previous year contests and people who took place on them. Perhaps it would be nice to have some feedback from them.

I don't mind if they are in Berlin or not to be honest (or just using the "Berlin" name because it sounds cool). But I think if it was not legit, there will be some threads here of members who participated and felt scammed or something? Or perhaps I didn't find them. The fact that the company is in Bulgaria is not really big deal, Bulgaria has very low tax rate and may make sense for "not so big budget" arts/music contests?
 
I personally find the video quite challenging because A) it is animation (so no real scene you can relate to), B) there are no people there (so you can not "tune in" to the emotions of anybody), and C) eagles flying over giant mountain-faces and wolves turning into rays of light are cool, but don't carry a lot of emotional payload. Writing music for that is personally difficult for me at least.

Still, I think it is a challenge and quite an interesting one.
 
Ok ok, your work is far from embarrassing. It's clear that currently need some specific skill and improvement in orchestration but learning never ends, even for John Williams. You have a good sense for scoring and I think you put your best into this entry ;)
I have a ton of really embarrassing stuff and I'll never show it to anybody :D
Happy improving
 
They should call it Sofia Scoring competition and everything would be ok! Isn’t there a law against using a city’s name in such a fraudulent way? Actually, they should also not give it the Sofia tag, as it seems to be exclusively an online thing with no actual event taking place in the real world.
 
arafaratanran said:
They should call it Sofia Scoring competition and everything would be ok! Isn’t there a law against using a city’s name in such a fraudulent way? Actually, they should also not give it the Sofia tag, as it seems to be exclusively an online thing with no actual event taking place in the real world.
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The word "fraudulent" is quite strong and specific (fraud is well defined by law and this is not fraud). Be careful with throwing it out easily. As far as I know, there is no law preventing someone from calling a festival with the name of any city, and why should it?

Other issue would be if they were claiming that they are representing or speaking in the name of Berlin, it's government or its artists, but as far as I know, calling your festival "Berlin" is as illegal as buying a T-shirt with the text "New York" from a french fashion chain in Italy, or calling your Spanish rock band "Toronto's connection", there's nothing wrong about it in my humble opinion.
 
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