Presenting Diane Paragas and Civilian Studios

Diane Paragas is a producer/director of award winning documentaries, tv programs, web series and commercials.

Prior to founding Civilian Studios, Diane worked first in international advertising as an agency producer then for MTV in the international promos department. She went on to direct for Vh-1, BBC, CNN and PBS as a freelance producer and writer. In 1999, Diane started her first production company with an MTV colleague and went on to produce programs for Oxygen, IFC, Bravo, The Economist TV and the Peabody Award-winning Egg, The Arts Show. In 2000, Diane directed her first feature length documentary for PBS called Kababayan about Filipinos in America. In 2002, Diane founded her own production company, Civilian Studios, which specializes in documentary and commercial content for TV, Web and Cinema. Through Civilian, Ms. Paragas’ has directed for BET’s American Gangster, the Discovery series NEXTWORLD, as well as winning awards from The American Library Association, The Chicago Film Festival, Los Angeles Shorts Festival, The Tribeca Film Festival and The New York Film Festivals. Diane’s film “A Subway Ride Through Childhood” premiered on PBS in Dec 2005 and was be featured in an upcoming American Youth Series at the MOMA.

Today, Civilian Studios has proven to be a leader in documentary and commercial content for TV and the web creating television campaigns for Andrew Cuomo’s run for governor, a 4 spot series for care.com and a new multimedia ad campaign to launch the IAC’s new venture. Civilian Studios was the production company for

Here’s “Menda,” for Care.com. We love this.

How about this awesome new work for Proust.com

Josh

and also for Proust, “Little Person”

Brooklyn Boheme is a historical documentary and a personal essay by co-director Nelson George about a Brooklyn, New York neighborhood that was home base to an extraordinary community of black and Hispanic artists in the ’80s and ’90s. Filmmaker Spike Lee, comic Chris Rock, actress Rosie Perez, rap star Talib Kweli, visual artist Lorna Simpson, jazzman Branford Marsalis, rock guitarist Vernon Reid, and poet/rocker Saul Williams are just a sampling of the talent that resided in the area. This is a feature length documentary, co-directed by Diane Paragas, that unlocks a little known piece of New York City cultural history.

O, not only did Diane co-direct this. She shot and cut it!

Here’s a piece just about it in the Wall Street Journal

Blackatlas.com is an American Airlines sponsored web series, shot in over 30 cities around the world including Beijing, Paris, Milan, Brazil, Barcelona, Rome, London, Dublin and Costa Rica…
Agency: Burrell, Chicago
Host: Nelson George
Here’s the Beijing piece:

Here’s the launch piece for Andrew Cuomo’s run for Governor

Below, a clip from “New York Kids: A Subway Ride Thru Childhood,” a PBS doc.