LBU Product Journal - 'Lord Of The Rings'

There were two villains in this scene that needed sound design: the killer horse and its rider. I had originally used a recording of an aggressive horse 'neigh' for the horse sounds in this clip, but feedback from my academic adviser pointed out that this horse is evil and needed a darker and scarier sound. I therefore went back to my recordings of animals, and blended the sounds of pig 'snorts', horse 'neighs' and dog growls which gave the horse a more unique and menacing sound.

The rider is an 'undead' character, so required a unique sound too, but I didn't want to use too many animal sounds and make it hard for a viewer to distinguish between the horse and the rider. This led me to my research on Ben Burtt's vocalisations for various films. I decided to take this approach and screeched down the microphone. With lots of reverb and a little distortion, I created a sound I was pleased with.