Diane Paragas

Founder, Director

Diane Paragas is the founder, executive producer and a director for Civilian Studios.  Ms Paragas began her career in advertising as an agency producer and quickly moved to MTV where she helped launch MTV in Asia. She moved to Hong Kong in 1997 and was taken on as supervising producer of a 13-part documentary series called Living Asia for Discovery Channel. Returning to NY as a freelance producer/director, Diane worked for Vh-1, BBC, CNN and the Grammy Awards.

In 2000, Diane started her own company with an MTV colleague where they produced content for Oxygen, IFC and Bravo. At the same time, Diane directed her first feature length documentary for PBS called Kababayan about Filipinos in America and produced and directed segments for the Peabody Award winning Egg. Today, Civilian Studios, Diane's latest and greatest venture, is the culmination of a long road of struggling to find a voice and means to tell the stories that she longed to tell. Ms Paragas has created 4 films for PBS, has been shown at the MOMA and won Telly awards, A Silver Hugo from the Chicago Film Festival and has had her films featured in the Tribeca Film Festival.  She has also become a sought after commerical director for clients such as American Airlines, IAC, Care.com and Proust.com.

Bound and determined to make content that is meaningful and exciting, Diane hopes that CIVILIAN will be a force to be reckoned with in the Digital Age. In addition to running the company, directing commercials, films and theater, Diane likes to paint, write music and help other CIVILIANS to get their stories out there.