Sports take alum from Boulder to Hollywood
By Jessica Martell

Sara Fischer and her husband, Peter Bylsma

Every moment is show time for Sara Fischer ('78). The Hollywood studio executive organizes her life like a live TV show. Bursting with gregarious tenacity, she continues to break barriers in an industry that doesn't cater to women. For Fischer, every second counts.

Currently overseeing the third season of Showtime's highly acclaimed "Queer as Folk," Fischer, 45, is constantly in motion. She says she has supervised the production of dozens of Showtime original movies, which requires continuous cycles of traveling to Mexico, Australia and Canada. Summer is the busiest time for Showtime's moviemaking, she says, because that's when the weather is most accommodating for Canadian shoots, which comprise 90 percent of Showtime's productions.

This past summer, Fischer was involved in three pilots and two movies for Showtime. She says her favorites included "In the Time of the Butterflies," filmed in Mexico, which tells the story of three Mirabel sisters who were murdered while they worked to overthrow the Trujillo dictatorship in 1960 in the Dominican Republic. Another was "True West," starring Bruce Willis, which was filmed in Sun Valley, Idaho.This past summer, Fischer was involved in three pilots and two movies for Showtime. She says her favorites included "In the Time of the Butterflies," filmed in Mexico, which tells the story of three Mirabel sisters who were murdered while they worked to overthrow the Trujillo dictatorship in 1960 in the Dominican Republic. Another was "True West," starring Bruce Willis, which was filmed in Sun Valley, Idaho.

A lifelong athlete, Fischer says she swam and played tennis in school. Memories of intramural athletics in college, such as broomball, draw thick bubbles of laughter. Her love of athletics was instilled at a young age, she says. While growing up on the East Coast, Fischer says her father took her twice a week to see the New York Rangers play hockey.

She returned to New York after graduating and went to work in PR for a sports agent who represented some of the most noted names in basketball and football. Through connections at the agency, she was hired by EUE/Screen Gems Ltd. There she learned the ins and outs of TV commercial production and earned her way into the Director's Guild. Yet something compelled her back to sports.

Fischer says she interviewed with ABC, CBS and NBC – the only networks that produced sports at the time. She says she was hired by CBS Sports as one of the first two women who worked in production at the network. The other was Suzanne Smith, one of the few women today who direct sports on a major network. The two remain friends.

Fischer was a whirlwind, composing team clip reels, making travel arrangements for team events and working in the graphics trucks.

"It was bedlam," she says. "There's no 'take two,' like in film."

But a serious injury to her hand forced Fischer to return home to her family in Los Angeles to recuperate. It was a difficult, disheartening move for Fischer, who was so dedicated that she says she once slept with the Cotton Bowl trophy on New Year's Eve to "protect" it for the Jan. 1 game.

At that time in Los Angeles, preparations were being made for the 1984 Summer Olympic Games. With her sports expertise, she volunteered to help the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee, thinking she would be placed at a sports venue. Instead she was assigned to a group covering the opening ceremonies.

The experience turned out to be more than just figuring out how to shoot complex dance formations. During the games, she met an executive at Disneyland named Peter Bylsma who would become her husband.

After the Olympics, Fischer says she worked for MTM productions on shows such as "Remington Steele" and "St. Elsewhere." She has also worked as associate director in live sports, then as an assistant director, production manager and line producer for "thirtysomething," "My So-Called Life," "Chicago Hope" and many others.

Fischer is nonchalant about daily life in Hollywood and her opportunities to work with those who've left imprints in the concrete outside Mann's Chinese Theater. She says she's grounded in a sense of family.

"They live in Hollywood but have children, too," she says of the celebrities, pointing out that they show up at soccer matches and do the shopping just like any other parents.

Fischer makes time for car-pooling and school board meetings. Emily, 14, Margaret, 11, and Gordon, 6, keep Fischer on the ball – a sporting event in itself.

"Coming to work is the breather of the day," she says.