Savannah Sicurella's Final News Portfolio

P O RT F O L I O Savannah Sicurella 2015-2016

The Frights bring punk to Orlando

Three hours after I had interviewed The Frights in an abandoned lot adjacent to the venue I was currently reveling in, I was beginning to feel the oncoming formations of bruises along the ridges of my hipbones.

Thundering, growling, and thrashing above me were the San Diego-native punk quartet The Frights, all adorned in black jeans with gaping holes on the backside and unbrushed hair pushed away from their faces. With Telecasters suspended from black straps, the band howled songs from their second-album You Are Going To Hate This into the flimsy microphones positioned in front of them, their footwork sloppy and uncalculated but their strumming measured and precise.

On Feb. 12, the band officially released the album on the independent label Dangerbird Records, surprising eager listeners with a stark departure in sound from their self-titled debut. Where once their self-titled album serenaded listeners with repeated F-Major chords, distant vocals, and light instrumentals, their newest album abrasively excited them with crunchy power chords, disgruntling notes, and warped distortion effects.

The album, which was produced by the FIDLAR frontman Zac Carper, notorious for instrumentals that do not soothe nor pacify, exemplifies the maturity that was adapted within the band. As documented in their song Of Age, which states “There’s one thing that I need to do, I’m trying to sell out/I can finally pay my rent somehow,’’ the band has finalized their decision to make a career out of being musicians. No longer living under their parents’ roofs and resuming the responsibility of paying for their own bills, this change in character attributed to their departure in sound and songwriting process.

In the interview I had conducted with them three hours before violet contusions began to appear on my skin, The Frights attributed their progression in sound to their coming of age.

Stated Mikey Carnevale, the frontman of the band: “For this record, there was definitely a concept for the whole thing, like a coming-of-age concept. So, there was that, really. Being a 21-year-old instead of an 18-year-old, which we were when we recorded our first record. That was pretty much the mindset. It’s kind of like, man, I’m 21, I’m on my own now, I have money and I pay for stuff...my parent’s don’t cook dinner for me every night, all that stupid stuff.’’

However, all of the songs do not express the subtle melancholy theme of growing up. On songs such as Puppy Knuckles (“When we’re together, I feel like a fool’’) and All I Need (“Kiss me slowly so I can fall asleep/You are my baby, that’s all I need’’), they lament about love (resorting back to their swoon-pop, doo-wop roots) and reminisce past relationships. They integrate muted drum beats à la Richie Valens on their track Afraid of the Dark, and they avert the thrashing tone consistent on the record by breaking into a slow jam on their track Haunted, which exchanges power chords for droning bass notes and delayed guitar effects.

When asked about the drive of the album and the story behind its name, they conveyed the thought that it was designed to thrust a jagged stake into the criticism of the fans they once had that accused them of “selling out.’’

‘’It was pretty much a defense against criticism,’’ Richard Dotson, the face behind the buzzing bass notes on their album, said.

Embarked on a cross-country tour with the Oakland-native SWMRS—another punk band that had the privilege of working with Zac Carper on their debut album—, The Frights had only played a few shows before arriving in Orlando.

Their performance was astounding. With their music inciting a riot within the pit behind me, I was ironically being pushed into the base of the stage (which provided no barrier between the crowd, which consisted of about fifty punk-teenagers adorned in arbitrary attire, and the band) in time with the music. Slamming on distortion pedals and proudly boasting their San Diego origins, The Frights kissed the nonexistent Floridian punk scene with revival and gratification.

Self-Reflection

The article I wrote about The Frights and their recent concert in Orlando was subjectively one of the best articles I have ever written. This belief is partially due to the fact that I had the privilege of interviewing the band—who so happened to be my all-time favorite band—for my personal music blog, an achievement I treasure and will eventually cherish throughout my future journalistic career. With a little re-wording (as you would assume they would be, The Frights are extremely vulgar and did not censor themselves throughout the interview), paraphrasing, and condensing, I was able to compose a feature/entertainment article centered around the gig, a departure from how my original blog-post was structured (my blog-post was a Q&A-formatted article, while the one that was published in the Titan Times was a feature-type article).

I do believe that this article exemplifies a degree of sophisticated journalism writing. Throughout the article, I used incredibly flowery language (which is, unfortunately, a bad habit of mine) to accompany the quotes and factual information acquired through the interview. I had the privilege of being guided by Gina Calbeto on how to structure the content in the article (I strayed away from the LQTQ and inverted-pyramid formats), and although there are a view errors (titles not being italicized, the article’s extreme length), I believe that it is one of the more stronger pieces of work I have ever written.

NYFW: New York Fashion What?

As the autumn season inches closer, so does another iconic season that trend-junkies and fashion-fiends believe outshines all others; fashion week. Dubbed NYFW by those exclusive enough to partake in it, it is a eight-day long event that showcases the Spring and Summer collections of some of the most obscure, prestigious, and affluent womenswear and menswear companies in the mainstream media. Some of the shows featured in the festival include collections from designers and companies such as Rachel Antonoff, Anna Sui, Givenchy, Alexander Wang, and even Project Runway.

NYFW has been a main part in fashion--and New York City’s--culture ever since its debut in 1943, when it was first introduced by American fashion icon Eleanor Lambert, as she wanted to design an event that would divert America’s attention away from French fashion during World War II. Before the inauguration of the very first Fashion Week, Vogue had prominently featured and focused on breakthrough French designers, but after its success, Vogue had begun to shift their focus on more on American-based designers and arthouses. Its success stuck, and NYFW has been engraved into the City’s culture for the last 72 years.

The hundreds of collections shown during NYFW were staggered across four venues in Manhattan; Skylight at Moynihan Station, MADE at Milk Studios, Skylight Clarkson Square, and HQ on West 14th Street. Other collections were shown at separate studios and ateliers, including neutral-laden and controversy-stirring collections by Kanye West, the first posthumous collection from the imagination of Oscar de la Renta’s successor Peter Copping, and the ever-avant-garde pieces from the California-based brand Rodarte. Both Phillip Lim and Alexander Wang each hosted shows that celebrated their ten-year anniversaries as revolutionary design houses, and Givenchy, under the direction of Riccardo Tisci, premiered the most expensive runway show in NYFW history.

As well as a festival to showcase the newest innovative collections curated from just a blueprint, sewing machine and a vivid imagination, New York Fashion Week’s runway audiences harbor a massive amount of celebrities and fashion icons, such as Kim Kardashian (who, discernibly, sat in for her husband’s show), Taylor Swift and Karlie Kloss (who chose to make an appearance in the front row of an Oscar de la Renta show, clothed in distracting, matching colorful frocks), and every show’s anticipated guest, Anna Wintour, the Editor-in-Chief for American Vogue. You’d think that Meryl Streep would be there, in lieu of her unforgettable performance in The Devil Wears Prada.

After an endless, eight-day long streak of collections showcased by American designers and arthouses, New York Fashion Week came to a grand conclusion, with the New York City-based brand À Moi by Alejandra Alonso bringing the festival to an end. Although emotionally difficult to comprehend, the show, or in this case, the week, must go on. But, that doesn’t necessarily mean that the show has to end completely, with New York Fashion Week acting as a predecessor to London Fashion Week, Milan Fashion Week, and Paris Fashion Week.

Self-Reflection

In my personal opinion, I believe that my ‘’NYFW: New York Fashion What?’’ article was one of the best pieces I have written for the Titan Times, including the previous year I spent as solely a reporter. Unfamiliar with the fashion industry and the modeling business, I decided to explore the topic of New York Fashion Week through extended research driven by my curiosity and overall interest in the field, and in time, I was able to compose an article solely based off of my research conducted over a span of two-to-three days.

Although not featuring any quotes or anecdotes from students, I believe that it exemplifies and demonstrates a sophisticated journalism style, especially for an amateur reporter. I was not used to the features writing style, so being able to compose a feature-type article allowed me to broaden my horizons and experience with writing diverse types of articles and written content. I also found an incredible amount of enjoyment in writing this article, which diverged from the hard-hitting articles I was used to robotically spitting out (I still enjoyed it, nonetheless) in previous cycles.

Big Brother 17 concludes with a bang In true George Orwell fashion, CBS’s ever-popular reality television show Big Brother brought its seventeenth consecutive season to an end on Sept. 23, with the winner and “America’s Favorite Player’’ being crowned their respective titles and cash prizes by the end of the two hour long episode. The long-awaited season finale aired two months after the first episode had premiered on June 24, showcasing sixteen new freshfaced house guests to the eager viewers at home. After two months of intensive game play, Steve Moses, the, nerdy stock-character of the house (who was oddly reminiscent of Ian Terry, season 14’s winner) took home the title as the champion of Big Brother’s seventeenth season.

Big Brother saw its debut during the summer of 2000, inspired by a Dutch television series by the same name and created by ambitious executives at CBS. After seeking the opportunity to transform it into a national reality television show, Big Brother aired its first season with ten dissimilar contestants of different ages, backgrounds, and ethnicities all living and competing under the same roof.

The concept of Big Brother is simple; just as the looming figure in George Orwell’s novel 1984 watches over all of the civilians’ actions, the viewers at home witness all of the house guests’ actions, conversations, and their game play as a whole. All living under a custom-built house constructed to comfortably tailor to all of the contestants’ needs, 14-16 people of different backgrounds, ages, and genders are shut off from the outside world and forced to interact with themselves, and only themselves. Each week, a new player gets crowned the Head of Household, and makes a decision to put two other players “up on the block’’ to be considered for an eviction. After two players are nominated and a Power of Veto competition is held— where the two nominated house guests, the Head of Household, and four other players compete to potentially save one of the nominated houseguests, the other contestants must privately vote for who they would want to exit the Big Brother house. Thus, the house guest is eliminated and leaves the house with nothing but their luggage and the experience of a lifetime. This isolation, with the addition of constant Head of Household competitions, evictions, and Veto Races, puts a strain on the contestants, and many are forced to delve out of their comfort zones.

The creators and casting agents of Big Brother were faced with a dilemma as they noted the rather low ratings of the past two seasons; what went wrong? Was it the contestants? The game play? Did the show just simply overstay its welcome? Unsure of the direct causes of the low ratings, the casting agents decided to vamp up the array of chosen contestants and “twists’’ of the season. Along with reintroducing the Battle of the Block twist into the gameplay—a new variation of the gameplay, where instead of one Head of Household being crowned each week, two were crowned and forced to compete for their role as the reigning Head of Household in separate competitions—Big Brother casted their very first transgender house guest, a former professional wrestler, two past contestants from The Amazing Race, and two women highly experienced in the field of game theory, one of them being one of the top five highest-winning women in the history of World Series Poker. There was also the implementation of a “Twin Twist,’’ a scheme devised by producers that caused a set of twins—Julia and Liz Nolan—to interchange and play in the household under the same name.

The first few episodes, surprisingly, did not witness much of a slow burn as the other seasons; within the first thirty minutes of the two-part season premiere, Da’Vonne Rogers, Shelli Poole, and Audrey Middleton

began talking about forming an all-girls alliance that would eventually dissipate further into the season. After the live Head of Household competition, James Huling and Jason Roy were both crowned the winners, and ultimately, the role of Head of Household went to Huling as Becky Burgess and John McGuire, who were nominated alongside Steve Moses and Jackie Ibarra, succeeded in winning the first Battle of the Block competition. Steve, winning the first Veto Competition, pulled himself off of the block, and the Head of Household nominated Jace Agolli to sit alongside Jackie Ibarra. Once all of the House Guests privately voted for who they wanted to exit the household, it was revealed that Jace Agolli would be the first contestant to be eliminated from the Big Brother household. Au revoir, Jace.

At the start of the season, it was evident that viewers at home favored specific contestants and rooted for them to win; many favored James and his foolish, joking quirks, John, for his incredibly inflecting, goofy tone of voice and his ability to win Veto Competitions like it was nobody’s business, Audrey Middleton, the show’s first triumphant transgender contestant, and Vanessa Rousso, one of the highest-earning women in the World Series of Poker history. However, many viewers’ opinions of contestants began to shapeshift as the players delved into deeper gameplay; they began to see the holes in Audrey’s gameplay, and how she was prone to bending the truth to further benefit her position in the house, and they began to notice how Vanessa’s strategy was to play with people’s emotions and utilize the waterworks to the best of her ability. Inter-contestant relationships, dubbed ‘’showmances’’, also changed many viewers’ opinions on the contestants; two of them being Clay Honeycutt and Shelli Poole, who dominated the household before being taken out by James, and Austin Matelson and Julia Nolan, who dominated the household until the end of the season.

The game truly began with the revealing of the “Twin Twist” to the suspicious house guests, allowing both sets of twins to enter the household as individual players. Soon, there was a divide in the household; one side of the house consisting of the “underdogs’’ (James, John, Becky, Jackie, Meg Maley), and the other including those who considered themselves to be in a “clique’’ (Austin, Liz, Julia, Vanessa, Steve). Big Brother is truly like a low-budget high school drama film, with the social cliques and groups coming into light.

Towards the end of the season, it was evident that the supreme half of the house was the one comprised of Austin, Liz, Julia, Vanessa, and Steve; by the beginning of September, the final five contestants remaining in the house were Austin, Liz, Vanessa, Steve, and John. After John’s unexpected eviction, and Vanessa’s poignant decision to evict Austin, the final three players battled in three separate competitions to possess the title of the last Head of Household of the season. Much to the viewers’ dismay, who expected Vanessa to be victorious, Steve won the final competition, and was crowned the pressuring title of the final Head of Household.

In time, Steve unpredictably evicted Vanessa, and all of the previously evicted house guests came forward during the live season finale to give their input of the season. Those who had gone to the Jury House— all contestants evicted after the seventh week are forced to live in a separate household, “The Jury,’’ where they watch the other contestants’ game play and vote for the winner during the finale—discussed the highlights of the season and prepared themselves for the live voting to begin. Soon enough, the members of the Jury House began to voice their votes, and it was revealed that Steve Moses, the youngest contestant in the household, had won the title of the Big Brother 17 Champion by a vote of 6-3, and was awarded with $500,000. Similarly, James Hurling was crowned “America’s Favorite Player,” and scored a grand prize of $25,000.

Although the contestants’ gameplay was scandalous, repulsive, silly, ridiculous, overbearingly dedicated, and focused most of the time, a game is just a game.

Well, money aside, of course.

Self-Reflection Another article that I believe expertly exemplifies the best of my journalistic and writing abilities is my Big Brother season recap article, which I had written and published in September of 2015.

The article was a play-by-play (or merely an episode-by-episode) highlight of all of the memorable moments in the newly ended seventeenth season of Big Brother. Although it was merely a recollection of events that occurred on a reality show, I consider it to be a piece that represents the ‘’obsessive’’ side of me, an attribute that often drives or sparks my passion for writing. I often compose written content (articles, blog posts, journal entries, essays) that is centered around issues, ideas, or events that I am concerned with and interested in, and Big Brother, a callous reality TV show, happens to be something I am incredibly fond of and obsessive about.

I usually tend to write my best whenever I am writing/reporting about issues and topics I am interested in, but I am able to recognize a few flaws in this article. The biggest--and most noticeable--flaw of the article is its length. Although it is nearly impossible to recap an entire season of a reality television show in a short article, I think that I could have cut some corners and left out less significant details to shrink the size of the monstrosity.

Personal Essay

Facing the Strange

All throughout my life I have struggled to call one specific city my hometown. It seems as if every ‘’hometown’’ to me is every city I used to live in and call my own; when I lived in Osteen it was Lake Mary, when I lived in Vero Beach it was Osteen, and when I moved to Debary it was Vero Beach. I struggle to identify myself with one specific place. The closest thing to a permanent home I have is my mother’s home in Tucker, Georgia, a Debary-like town that sits a comfortable distance away from Atlanta.

I have been moving around for the majority of my youth, spawned by my father’s indecisiveness and constant desire to relocate his chiropractic offices in different Floridian cities. The earliest memories I have were in Lake Mary (when my mother and my father were still married), the dazed memories I have from my spoiled childhood were reminisced in Osteen (when I lived on a ten-acre farm), the tremors of preadolescence were wasted in Vero Beach (where I lived three miles away from the shoreline), and the sparks of my coming-of-age brewed in my stomach in Debary. Whenever I think back on the years I spent in these elusive towns, in different-style homes and outside environments (the country, the coast, the city, etc.), I identify them with songs, scents, or sights--the movie Aquamarine reminds me of Osteen, the sight of yellowy lighting and the scent of salt reminds me of Vero Beach, and the feeling of driving while the sun is setting reminds me of Debary.

I do not particularly believe that one of these specific cities defines who I am, but rather, the conglomeration of cities and the impacts they had on my upbringing. The troubles of adjusting to a new city (making new friends, finding your niche, developing new interests) has shaped me to be the person I am today, from the callouses on my fingers to the scuffs on my shoes. A lot that has to do with the person I am today are the reflections and reminiscences I have of my ‘’past lives’’ in other cities, and my unwillingness to re-experience some of the things that happened there (losing friends, being bullied, suffering through middle-school band practice)-in time, I begin to shape into a completely different person, diverging from who I once was and transforming into a new being. In Osteen I was a spoiled country-girl (knees bruised, fingernails dirty), in Vero Beach I was a gap-toothed flute player (frumpy, obsessive, an avid fan of pop music), and in Debary I was (and still am) an enigmatic intellect (obsessive over grades, part-time thespian, part-time newswriter).

I can pinpoint certain traits and aspects of my personality that can be attributed to the influence of the cities I lived in. My unfortunate tendency to expect receiving what I ask for stems from my affluent upbringing in Osteen, my obsessiveness and tendency to favor lesser-known pop culture (my more vague interpretation of a godawful ‘’hipster’’) stems from the rages of jealousy I would feel in Vero Beach when I found out that other people liked One Direction, my oddity and strangeness was birthed between the thin walls that divided the blackbox from the auditorium in Debary, and my love for writing was spawned by a mixture of influences (my writing classes in fourth grade, my love for reading in middle school, and my connections to newspaper in high school).

However, I do believe that Debary, the city I am currently living in, and the town I feel a strong sense of permanence in, has had the biggest effect on my adolescence. I moved to this city when I was on the brink of turning thirteen, a milestone in any adolescent’s life. My family and I migrated to Debary without any connections--the only connection we had to the city was the timeworn membership my grandfather had to the country club when we lived in Osteen. As anyone can possibly imagine, having to establish and develop new friendships with unfamiliar people in a foreign city is the most difficult thing for a shy, gap-toothed eighth grader, and my biggest fear was unacceptance and a sense of unbelonging. When I attended my first day of middle school, I broke down crying in the middle of my band class--there was no particular reason why, aside from overwhelm and unfamiliarity, but it was humiliating and an awful way to start off the first day of my final year of junior high. Thankfully, as preadolescents are not as cruel as they seem to be, I made a few friends on the first day of school, but I quickly shed them as I trudged through my final year of middle school and began high school.

I began to ‘’find myself ’’ in high school, particularly the end of my sophomore year and the beginning of my junior year, transforming into the person I am today, a subtly-pretentious music fan, a walking IMDB account, an aspiring journalist, and a student on her way to graduate with honors.

The city of Debary has a huge impact on my personal transformation; being such a bland, dead city (there are no remnants of a youth culture or a lively downtown scene here--the farthest you have to go to experience that is Downtown Deland or Downtown Sanford), the youth here are forced to make their own fun. For some, it’s wasting their days smoking outside of a Taco Bell, working day shifts at the rollerskating factory, or cooling off inside of a pristine Target Superstore, but for me, it was sitting in my bedroom utilizing all of the resources that surrounded me--magazines, books, television, the Internet, and my beloved journal. As I spent the frigid wintertime weekends and melting days of summer break sitting in the comfort of my own teenage bedroom, I began to scour these resources for entertainment--in time, I unknowingly began to discover artists and obscurer music within the depths of Soundcloud, a teenage-girl scene that I could identify with on Rookie, and a network of independent cinephiles on Tumblr. I made my own fun, and the fun began to rub off on me.

I do not favor one city over the other--the experiences in all of the towns I lived in are equally cherishable and treasurable. I am fortunate enough to live a life of positivity and support, and I am unable to pinpoint any negative situations that cloud over my interpretation of the city. I am thankful to have such a diverse upbringing, constantly surrounded by different forms of culture and influences. I hope that in my future, as I move on to different cities in different states, I will experience the same time of diverse upbringing I was raised around.