FX
I have been working on the sound of the dogs, and a couple of problems arose that I didn’t foresee. Firstly, making the barks impactful enough, I have been pulling sounds from a library and the recordings just aren’t punchy enough, they sound dry and a bit weak. To remedy this I have layered some growling that increases in volume, in effect amping up to the bark. I also used a couple of plugins on the bark, firstly I shifted the pitch down an octave to give the impression of a larger more intimidating dog, I then used an EQ to boost some of the higher frequencies to emphasise the texture of the bark. Next I used a compressor quite aggressively to give the bark a better punch, after this I used a Bit crusher to add a slight crunch to the sound. Lastly I added a convolution reverb set to a mountain top preset and adjusted the levels. I think this method has worked well, the result was a more interesting rich effect, I think the layers support and emphasise the singular bark.
The second problem I had to work around was making the FX match the location of the source to the camera. Specifically this was for the sound of the dogs running, they run away from the camera very quickly. I achieved this by automating the volume making the sound quieter as they got further away. I also applied the space designer reverb to the track, I then automated the wet output to get higher as they got further away.
I applied a reflective reverb to the sound of the vultures to achieve the effect of the character walking through a stone alleyway, I think this was very effective and places the audience in the same location as the character. I also used Ozone Imager to reduce the stereo spread of the sound, I did this to make it more directional as there is only a narrow opening for the sound to come through above the subject.