Maham Khwaja has always enjoyed film production, but when she learned how to make puppets at an internship with Sesame Street, her ingenuity in costume design rose to a new level.
Khwaja, a first year graduate student in film productions from Pakistan, moved to Atlanta with her family when she was 6 years old. She went to Emory University for her undergraduate degree in film study, focusing on film production. At Emory, she learned how to direct a group of people and create films.
“I realized that my favorite parts were the ones [where] I could get extra creative with the set,” Khwaja said. “I just like setting a scene and making characters look a certain way.”
When one of her professors told her about a film production internship in New York, Khwaja soon began working as a costume department production assistant, costume and wardrobe supervisor and helped create sets in New York, Missouri and Reno, Nevada. She worked on the films “Dark Horse,” “The Motel Life” and a horror film titled “You’re Next.”
Khwaja said “You’re Next” has a terrible script, but working in a huge, old house in Missouri with dark shots and fake blood was a lot of fun.
In 2011 her family tried to convince her to go with them to Pakistan and visit family for the summer, but she was reluctant to go until she found the Sesame Street Pakistan internship in Lahore. Making puppets quickly became one of her favorite things to do.
“I enjoy the entire process of designing, constructing and creating a character from a pile of foam,” Khwaja said.
Khwaja has various puppet body parts at her home in Atlanta, but she only brought her favorite puppet, Ralphie, to the U when she began her graduate program a year ago. Ralphie is a green puppet with a purple nose and a mushroom haircut.
Puppets are made from pieces of carved out foam fused with intense glue, Khwaja said. The skin is made out of fleece cloth.
“It’s surprisingly easy to do, you just have to practice,” Khwaja said. “You have to be very precise with it.”
The only thing you have to watch out for is the glue, which can give you glue poisoning if it gets on the skin, Khwaja said, from experience.
After helping with other films, Khwaja came to graduate school at the U to work on her own films and to be in a different place.
Khwaja has worked with other graduate students in creating projects or acting in their films. She was also a teaching assistant for Miriam Sobrino, a second year graduate student in film production.
“I enjoyed working with her a lot in my course, and I will love to work again with her in the future,” Sobrino said. “Apart from that, I know that she is a very talented puppet maker and a great person with strong morals.”