FMC-Film Music Contest: From London to the whole world
The next year of FMC 2020, a unique international contest, knows its winners.
With the worldwide grand opening of the new year of FMC last year in London, which took place as part of a VIP event for music, film and media professionals, the contest launched its several-month search for composers, sound designers, musicians, which took place intensively in all countries and on all continents almost for a half a year.
The international organizational team of FMC, together with its main organizer Mgr. Vlad Železňák Sr. and Mgr. Vlad Železňák JR., the director of the contest, have experienced a year full of expected but also unexpected challenges, which they had to face and manage on the way to successfully find new music winners of the current year of the contest.
The FMC-Film Music Contest, which is gradually becoming one of the largest film and TV music competitions in Europe and Asia, is an international competition for composers of original music for films, TV, advertising and video games, sound designers, experimenters in electronic music and sound as well as for creators of theatrical and instrumental music.
This year came with a lot of novelties for musicians and contestants: it expanded the number of categories, brought two contest films, rewarded more contestants than originally planned and distributed rewards worth more than EUR 25,000. The rewards included, for example, complete professional music software in the form of sound libraries, plugins and virtual instruments from the world’s most renowned companies, whose sounds are used by the largest composers and producers of film and TV music, such as: Ramin Djawadi (Game of Thrones, Westworld,), James Newton Howard (The Sixth Sense, Pretty Woman, ER), Joseph Trapanese (Robin Hood, The Greatest Showman) etc.
In addition to a number of music awards, the winners also received original trophies made especially for this year, awards from some members of the international jury, representation rewards from the town of Košice and, photographer and artist Jozef Jasik Drdol decided to reward absolute winners with his paintings from Los Angeles. This year’s competition has significantly expanded to Asia, where it enjoys its interest and popularity. It managed to realize all this within the current year.
The contestants had the opportunity to participate in one of five categories. The organizers, in cooperation with Japanese filmmakers and partners, brought to the contest a short festival award-winning Japanese film Kerama Blue, for the edited version of which authors from all over the world could compose their musical ideas. The creators of original theatrical music as well as theatrical institutions were able to incorporate their original compositions. A novelty was also a category for creators of electronic music, sound designers and experimenters in the field of sound to compose for the animated sci-fi film Perpetual Motion. FMC was also looking for quality instrumental performances. Great musicians dedicated to this genre could participate in the Instrumental Music category.
From all the submitted compositions, the task of the jury was to select semi-finalists and finalists in each category. From these, then determine the absolute winners to be announced this year during the gala award ceremony and concert in Košice, with a large symphony orchestra with all the winners from around the world, members of the jury, international media representatives and film and music professionals. However, the occurrence of COVID-19 changed everything and the organizers had to come up with a way to organize the whole year to a successful end.
“We had the confidence of competitors from all over the world, whom we did not want to disappoint. Our team worked 24 hours a day and continuously created an alternative plan and form of the final award,” said V. Železňák junior, the director of the contest.
“At the time of COVID-19, we gathered all members of our jury in different parts of the world on-line. The judges listened to the competition submissions, viewed,listened and evaluated them in their studios and sent their final evaluations. It was a period of emails, video calls through various time zones and intensive preparations for the conclusion of the competition, “said V. Železňák Snr.
The winners were announced online in the form of a final video, in the presence of the organizers of the competition, the mayor of Košice, which was the guest town of the originally planned final gala concert. The absolute winners were announced by chairman of the jury Vlado Meller – who is undoubtedly one of the best masters of mastering, a two-time Grammy Award winner who has mastered albums of world music stars during his 43-year career.
The absolute winners of FMC 2020 in five competition categories were:
William Pitts (USA) – Original music for Film, TV, Ads, Video games
Patrick Bold (Germany) – Electronic music for the film Perpetual motion
Yi Zhang (USA) – Original music for the film Kerama Blue
Roberto Galbiati (Italy) – Instrumental music
Eugen-Dan Drăgoi (Romania) – Original Theater music
They were selected by the members of the prestigious international competition jury, who have collaborated with names such as: Hans Zimmer,Ildikó Enyedi, Aerosmith,Ridley Scott, Duran Duran, Vangelis, Paul McCartney, Goo Goo Dolls, Oasis, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Celine Dion, Jean-Michel Jarre, Stevie Wonder… or worked on hundreds of television and film projects and albums.
The complete results of FMC 2020 can be found on the official website of the contest, along with a lot of info and visual material about the contest.
If you would like to be part of the FMC 2021 don’t forget to subscribe to the official FMC mailinglist on our website to ensure that you don’t miss any updates and news.
FMC-PRESS TEAM
