CREATURE, COSTUME EFFECTS AND PUPPETS

Tahra has always been interested in costume effects, and started working as a fabricator and subsequently as supervisor in the workshop and on set for feature films including The Fifth Element, Lost in Space and for the Jim Henson Creature Shop on films including Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.

As a freelancer she also worked on pop promos and commercials where she developed and made several memorable characters such as the ITV Digital Monkey and the Velux Windows, Bears and toys.

The different media Tahra worked in came together when she was asked to supervise the animals in the theatre version of Dr Doliittle in 1998, the first time a special effects technique perfected for film was applied to a stage musical with the attendant problems of eight shows a week and a live audience. She has subsequently worked on several projects that employ the same mixed media approach such as 3 Musketeers for Endemol in Rotterdam and Berlin.