Filmmaker Bill Domonkos (left), inspired by Jill Tracy’s (right) haunting song, created The Fine Art of Poisoning, which appeared at Slamdance. Domonkos headshot © 2002 Vince Guarino; The Fine Art of Poisoning © 2002 Bill Domonkos and Jill Tracy; Tracy headshot © 2002 Brian James.

In his seductive film, The Fine Art of Poisoning, Bill Domonkos creates a glamorous netherworld of plots, deceit and revenge, using a montage of 2D and 3D animation, vintage photographs and hand-drawn images. San Francisco siren Jill Tracy’s song (of the same name) inspired the film. Her haunting music underscores the grim tale of Victorian parlor gatherings, fatal masquerades and eerie hallucinations, evokes mystery and dread with malicious elegance. Domonkos studied painting and video art at the Cleveland Institute of Art. After moving to San Francisco, he began working as an animator/illustrator in the computer game industry.

At Slamdance, filmmaker Nirvan Mullick dons a dandelion helmet to interest viewers for The Three of Us. It worked — the show was SRO plus Nirvan got orders to make more hats. © Nirvan Mullick and Benjamin Goldman 2003.

Inspired by the instrumental song Number Three by Ben Harper, The Three of Us is a surreal love triangle full of trippy images that morph into different objects in a magical way. The film began as an improvisation when Nirvan Mullick and Benjamin Goldman decided to collaborate when two weeks of stop-motion studio time was available. Although the intention was to complete the project in those two weeks, it was finally finished four years later. The film combines traditional 3D stop-motion animation with 2D hand-drawn animation, cutouts, scratch-on-film and found objects. Originally shot on 16mm, the footage was transferred to high definition, put on hard drives for editing and then blown up to 35mm. The filmmakers met while studying Experimental Animation at CalArts.

Sarah Brown’s darkly ironic Live Bait is a clay and puppet animation about a hungry fisherman showered with food that turns out to the bodies of former fishermen. Sunny settings, visible strings and 50 pounds of green rotting meat create the environment for this rough and ready first film. Brown graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design. She currently lives in Los Angeles were she is a freelance animator.