Rubyqvq

I personally know a friend studying at NYU for film music. He studied at my university (Indiana Bloomington) and he was masters student in performance with minor in composition. Not to offend you, but I was never fond of his music, to me his music lacked creativity. He composed a lot of tango, and other Latin dances (he was from Mexico). Perhaps it would be great to have some Chinese elements in your music, but I don't think you have to write super complex music. If you recently got a job in the field, that would make your application a lot better in the following year. You should probably just submit what you do for your job. In the mean time, work on your English and try to score as high as possible on TOEFL. Some people say you only need to clear the minimum, but really, if you had a choice between a native English speaker and international with similar applications, who would you choose? If you score 100+ on TOEFL, they may not be so concerned about the language barrier. (Never mind if you already have a good TOEFL score) Also, it may be great to get to know some people in US. Even if your director is famous in China, I'm not sure NYU faculties would recognize him. Also, would your director be able to write you LOR in good English? Indeed, it is very difficult to apply to schools in US if you are international..... I'm also international but I did my undergrad in US so it's different

I actually just finished the NYU Film Scoring Master's. It definitely focused a lot more on aesthetic choices, as well as somewhat on the logistic/production side of todays world, where film composers self produce most of their stuff with sample libraries. If you aren't super solid on some combination of classical music theory, electronic production, or recording your main instrument (especially if you play something other than piano), brushing up on all of those things will really help. You had a bit of elective freedom, take anything you want in the music/audio umbrella. I'm aiming to become a TV or game composer, but for now am looking mainly at commercial work, probably gonna get a side job in editing or publishing. For my portfolio, I had a few things I had made that were, in hindsight, pretty low quality in presentation though the ideas were there (I literally sent Finale output haha). The best thing I did was to write a serious piece for a conventional ensemble (string quartet) and have it recorded semi-professionally by some friends. If it's not too difficult and especially if you know someone, you can pull that off for less than a grand. Most of these places are looking for some combination of technical musical skill, clearly demonstrated academic achievement, and artistic voice/identity, so just make sure you try and get that across. Though I'll say academic achievement is lowest on that totem pole, more of a compensation if you're not outstanding in the others. Feel free to ask me some more specific questions!