Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Ruiqi Zhao. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Ruiqi, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Let’s start with what makes profitability in your industry a challenge – what would you say is the biggest challenge?

Yes, so as film composers, we do freelancing most of the time. I would say the biggest challenge to profitability is that our income is not stable. It varies a lot based on how many projects you get this month and the timetable of the projects. For example, I worked on some short films with low budget when I graduated. It is a good way to start the career but the income is minimal. Now, I have more experience and more credits, I got my own feature film and I can set my rate higher. So I would say it’s a long process but it will get better. In another scenario, people will choose to be an composer assistant to gain more first-hand experience and improve themselves by doing something like orchestration, score production and music arrangement, etc. For me, I am an assistant right now. So as an assistant, we often get paid case by case. I feel. like being someone’s assistant is also a good way to start. Another challenge is if something happens that delay the release day of the project, or anything is postponed by unexpected situations, it will definitely affect when we will get paid. And it did happen a lot. So I would say profitability is a challenge when you first start it in this industry. But it gets better and better.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I am a film composer and a singer-songwriter. I gained my master degree at Eastman School of Music, majoring in Contemporary Media and Film Composition in 2021. As people would know, our program at Eastman was created and sponsored by Five-time Emmy award winning composer Jeff Beal. Jeff offered us a really generous opportunity. He planned to move to New York. He left his house to us students to live, which means a lot for all of us. Luckily I was selected to be one of the candidates of this amazing opportunity. So I moved to los Angeles where I started my career.

After two months I got LA, I have been working for Hollywood Composer Nathan Wang. I learned so much from him. Not only is he an amazing film composer but he is also a really nice and generous person. I feel like he is a mentor to me. I do additional music, orchestration, music arrangement and score production, etc. We did a lot of projects together, including the move: One True Loves, starring Hollywood actor Simu Liu, released in April 7, 2023, the Spanish movie: Mi Otro Jon which is going to be released on October 2023. and Chinese movie “Ba Jiao Long Zhong”(Never Say Never), directed by Baoqiang Wang, which hit more than 280 million box office in July, 2023. And we are now working on Jackie Chan’s new movie that is going to be on in 2024.

In addition, I also do library music for music licensing company like Howling Music and Artlist io. I also write music for short films. A lot of them were selected into famous film festivals like LA Shorts Film Festival, Flickers’ Rhode Island International Film Festival and Holly shorts Film Festival. I also composed music for Pubg video game trailer. And would love to explore more in the gaming scoring world.

Working as a singer-songwriter, I arranged two songs for Hunan TV New Year’s Gala, which is a big show in China every year. And I produce, sing my own songs and I got great streaming on Spotify.

Are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

Yes. So when I was still a student at Eastman. I was so eager to hone my skillsets. I thought as long as I made good music, I will have a promising career. After I graduated, I realized it’s more than that. I have to keep promoting myself, reaching out more to people, net-working, so on and so forth. It is really important to meet people and socializing. And after I moved to LA, I got to know a lot of amazing communities and associations. Such as the AWFC, CDC, and SCL. I went to some amazing events and met a lot of talented people. So I hope I would know about these earlier when I just started my creative journey.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

First of all, being a film composer, when I finally saw my name on the big screen on the credit roll, I just felt amazing because I had the chance to contribute to this amazing project. And once I heard the some of the audience say they really love the music. At that moment, I felt really warm and it just gave me the confidence to move forward. And I feel like it’s really meaningful when I am able to contribute to a project that people love. And they can better resonate with the movie by listening to the music. I always feel satisfied when I can use my own strength to give something back to the industry and the society. Maybe when I become older, I can still watch one movie that has my music. It’s just incredible.

In addition, when I checked my statistics on Spotify, seeing people from all over the world listen to my piece always make my day. I also received some kind emails from people that said how much they love my music from different countries. That truly rewards me because this is the time when realize how powerful music is to bring everyone together as a universal language.

And my music was featured in Apple Podcast “Fire and Light” and” Dark Side of The Web”. The topics of their podcast are really educational and thought-provoking. I felt really fortunate to be included in these amazing projects. I was so grateful that my music can bring such positive energy to people.

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Contact Info:

• Website: ruiqizhao.com
• Instagram: @ruiqimusic
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ruiqi.zhao.167?mibextid=LQQJ4d
• Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/zhaoruiqi
• Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/ruiqi-zhao

Image Credits
Christian Amonson