HOMUNCULUS PRODUCTIONS, LLC

The word "homunculus" refers to a functioning system thought to be run by a "little man" that lives inside it. Such a system includes human beings, as some inner entity or agent is somehow assumed to be in our brains, making things run. One example of this was Descartes' use of the homunculus to resolve his theory of dualism, that the soul and the body are two completely separate entities. He posited a "little man" behind the eye to process visual stimuli. Of course, this immediately raises the question of who is behind the "little man's" eyes - another little man (or a little woman)? And so on, ad infinitum.

Homunculus Productions, LLC, produces training films, industrials, PSAs, documentaries, and occasionally, fiction films. We are the homunculus that translates the world from your eyes to your brain.

Email us at alison@homunculusprods.com

ABOUT ALISON McMAHAN

Alison McMahan, Ph.D., is a documentary filmmaker and the president of Homunculus Productions and Homunculus Music. She has a BFA in Drama (Catholic University), an MFA in Film Production (New York University) and a Ph.D. in Film Studies (Union Institute & University). She has over twenty years of experience in film production, both in the U.S. and abroad. From 2001-2003 she held a Mellon Fellowship in Visual Culture at Vassar College where she built a virtual reality environment with a biofeedback interface for CAVEs. From 1997 to 2001 she was an associate professor, teaching film history and theory and new media at the University of Amsterdam. She is the author of numerous scholarly articles on film and new media, as well as the award-winning book Alice Guy Blaché, Lost Visionary of the Cinema (Continuum 2002) and The Films of Tim Burton: Animating Live Action in Hollywood (Continuum 2005).

Last updated 6/12/07