The network, a 20-year cooperative
agreement between the schools and Fox
TV, will broadcast hundreds of hours of
Big 10 athletic contests annually as well
as programming highlighting the indi-
vidual universities. Evolution has helped
create two shows for U-M, The Michigan
Difference and Healthy U, and is taping the
second 30-minute episodes for each.
The Michigan Difference has segments
on students, faculty and alumni, with
Zingerman's Deli in Ann Arbor, the U-M
solar car race team and a cultural anthro-
pology professor featured in the first
episode. Healthy U offers health tips from
U-M experts.
"We Are Built On Public Service" is
Evolution Media's unofficial motto and its
history. It has been the major television
production company for Jewish organiza-
tions in Detroit, from donating a video
production annually for 13 years for the
yearly gala of Farmington Hills-based
JARC to producing the video tribute for
West Bloomfield-based Jewish Home &
Aging Service's 100th anniversary celebra-
tion two weeks ago. It has produced 500
TV spots for U-M.

In The Beginning
Fran Victor's brother, Richard Victor of
Bloomfield Hills, provided the first project
for what would become a production com-
pany with five full-time and 6-7 freelance
or contract employees.
Victor, a family law attorney, wanted
Fran, a WXYZ-TV producer, in 1992 to
tape his "Smile" divorce education semi-
nar. "It would have been three hours of
videotape and it would have been deadly:'
Victor says.
She turned to collaborator Bill Harder,
a commercial still photographer, and said,
"Instead, let's create a documentary" The
result was a 50-minute video, listen to the
children: Divorce Education for Parents,
which continues to be used by the courts
in the U.S., Canada, Australia and Spain
and has won numerous national and
international awards.
One of the "actors" in listen to the chil-
dren was Nancy Fishman, a founder of
Forgotten Harvest, the Oak Park-based

organization that collects unused food
from restaurants and stores and distrib-
utes it to area food banks. Fishman asked
Victor and Harder to create a video for
Forgotten Harvest.
"That led to the next project and the
next project:' says Victor, "and 85 percent
of our projects can be traced back to that
first one with Nancy."
The string of projects became a full-
time company in 1994. According to
Harder, "It was a textbook case of building
a business. It wasn't self-sustaining for a
while. But then it was like building a fire
— it would build and build and build."
Now, the company divides its work into
five divisions: broadcast, live broadcast,
non-profit, corporate communications and
health and medicine. Among its clients
are Daimler Financial, the University of
Michigan and U-M Health System, the
national Salvation Army, the U.S. National
Institutes of Health, the Jewish Federation
of Metropolitan Detroit and its agencies.
And the work takes Victor and Harder
around the world — sometimes literally
and sometimes through the lenses of col-
laborators.
They traveled to Paraguay, Africa and
"Bill hung out of a helicopter over Alaskan
glaciers" to film their three-part Med Air
series on the role of private aviation in
medicine. It debuted in 2004 on Discovery
Wings and Discovery HD Theater. A 2004
documentary on the Sphinx Competition
for minority musicians and the lack of
minorities in classical music aired on PBS
stations nationwide and won a regional
Emmy.
Victor and Harder's days can be fas-
cinating. They might film surgery in the
morning at U-M, do a story on a home-
less shelter in the afternoon, and inter-
view Bloomfield Hills philanthropist Bill
Davidson at an evening gala. Several years
ago, within 24 hours they interviewed
the late Detroit leader Max Fisher for one
story and prison inmates and gang mem-
bers for a second story.
Hurricane Katrina two years ago pre-
sented unique problems for the two.
Their client, the national Salvation Army,
wanted them to film their rescue efforts in

the Gulf Coast region. But because of the
logistics, says Harder, "we asked people in
the area to get their footage out" to loca-
tions where electricity was still working,
then send it to West Bloomfield.
"We edited here he says, and provided
footage nationally for TV networks inter-
viewing the national commander of the
Salvation Army about the disaster relief
effort.
"We edited here, sent it out, and then
watched it that night on Larry King Live
and the national TV networks," Victor says.
Working for the Salvation Army, a
Catholic organization, has had its comic
moments. In addition to producing two
out the last three public service campaigns
for the Salvation Army, Evolution Media
this summer filmed a recruiting video
for the organization on the National Mall
in Washington, D.C. The shoot involved a
crane and 100 Salvation Army "soldiers" in
the capital's heat and humidity.
After hours of filming, Victor exhorted
the troops to do one more take by shout-
ing,"Smile for Christ! Smile for Christ!" In
that situation, she says, she often turns to
Harder and asks him to "kick me if I say
something stupid?'

Personal Ties
Harder has been a Jew by choice for 10
years. He was born in Milwaukee; but his
father, a career General Motors employee,
transferred to Michigan when Harder was
a teen. Harder attended high school here,
earned an engineering degree at U-M but
fell in love with photography.
Victor, a Detroit native, was a humani-
ties major at U-M. A divorced mother of
two children, she and Harder, now both 49,
made their collaboration both professional
and personal when they married in 1998.
They attend Shabbat services regularly at
Temple Israel in West Bloomfield and she
is on the temple board.
They both are immensely proud of
Victor's children. Erin, 24, is in graduate
school at New York University, with plans
to go into educational theater. Josh, 21,
is a senior at Michigan State University,
head of Spartans for Israel, was an intern
for U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., is

an AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs
Committee) student leader and has made
six trips to Israel in the last 30 months.
"You might think they [your children]
aren't listening:' Harder says, "but the
seeds will bear fruit?'
In essence, says Victor, that is how their
company has evolved and a tree, from one
seed, is now their logo.
While public service is their base, "we
also had to get serious about the business:'
Harder says.
With several full-time employees, says
Victor, "It's more than just us now The key
is to do good work and be nice to people
— we've had some of the same clients
since Day 1."
Future projects may include a trip to
Vietnam next year. They are planning a
series for ORBIS International on prevent-
ing blindness in the developing world.
Drawing on several experiences, they also
are thinking of proposing a medical mis-
sion staffed by Big 10 doctors.
With the kids grown up and fairly inde-
pendent, Victor says it's easier to work and
to travel. And, she adds, when the roller
coaster is running, you have to ride it. 7

Statuettes

Evolution Media has a long list of
awards, including:
• 3 Emmys
• 2 CINE Gold Eagles
• 3 Freddies
• NATAS Silver Circle
• 22 National Telly
• 3 MarCom Creative Excellence
• 3 Houston WorldFest
• 2 Chicago International Film
Festival
• Special Apple of the National
Educational Media Network
• Summit Creative Award of
Excellence
• CINDY Awardand awards from
the National Jewish Film and Video
Festival, the Metropolitan Film Festival,
the National Council on Family
Relations and others.

October 11 ® 2007

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