Nights in White Satin

Nights in White Satin is a Wiseguy Sonny/Vinnie slash fanvid edited by Lynn C. and Tashery Shannon. The music and lyrics are by The Moody Blues.
The vid is remarkable on two fronts: first, it uses, with powerful effect, the same song that appeared in the episode "No One Gets Out of Here Alive", during the climactic confrontation scene between Vinnie Terranova and Sonny Steelgrave. Second, it blends both dialog and music, something that was difficult to do during the analog/VCR editing period.
==Song's Context==
By using the same song that aired on TV, the vid builds on the audience's emotional connection with the scene and taps directly into the feelings of love, hurt and betrayal expressed between the characters in the episode. Most music in TV shows is intended to work in the background or is, at best, an after-thought. Here, the 1967 song "Nights in White Satin" is integral to Sonny's lines: "Remember the 60s Vinnie? How you gonna remember this? How you gonna remember me, Vinnie?" after realizing that Vinnie had been lying to him all along and was working undercover for the US government. The music swells and the camera zooms in on each man, cutting back and forth, closer and closer, until Vinnie is forced to look away in shame. The song blares: "Oh how I love you" at one point, cementing the slashy undertones. It is a very poignant moment between two men who share a friendship but have pursued two very different paths in life and who realize that the friendship is over. Shortly after that, Sonny commits suicide. It's a haunting use of a love song. At the time the episode aired, many fans commented on the "fanvid" like feel of the episode's weaving of music and dialog and context together, something rare in television at the time. This is not surprising considering that the episode plays the song over 90 seconds with no dialog, nothing but back and forth clips of Sonny and Vinnie staring at each other with pain and love and intense emotion. It may have been one of the longest scenes of two on-screen heterosexual men gazing into each others eyes since Stephen Boyd stared into Charlton Heston's eyes during the filming of Ben Hur.The Love That Dared Not Show Its Face, accessed September 27, 2012.
:"I don't think that there has ever been as slashy a moment on TV as "Nights in White Satin" in "No One Gets Out..." When I first heard about this scene, I thought for sure it was just another case of fen overblowing an innocuous scene and reading much more into it than I would have thought possible . Okay, so maybe the Moody Blues song does play during the scene, but it's probably real soft in the background while the characters ignore it, talking about something else. Boy, was I ever surprised; pleasantly so!...Still, [the slash is] definitely subtext since nothing is actually said like, "How could you fuck me then fuck me over?" but since the song that's playing at full volume while these two people are staring at each other is blaring "And I love you"--and this is not a song about 'brotherly' love, I think it comes pretty gosh darn close to text at that point. .....One of the few times I actually, honestly believe that the producers of any show *had* to know what they were doing." Michelle Christian's post to the Virgule-L mailing list in 1994, quoted with permission.
When the Wiseguy producers lost the rights to use the song during reruns in the 1990s, and the show came out on DVD without the music, many fans felt the episode was forever ruined.
==The Blending of Music and Dialog In the Analog Era==
In the 1990s, most data was transferred via floppy disks. Data CDs and DVDs were on the horizon and computer video and audio editing were still years away. If one wanted to edit audio, you did it at the analog level - with music being run through a mixing board and then recorded onto either audio or video tape.
VCR vids were made by erasing the first audio layer on the stereo video tape (the audio from the movie or TV show) and replacing the erased channel with music. It was almost impossible to separate out video dialog from background music and there was no way to blend two audio tracks together well without a mixer. And the price of audio mixers were beyond the reach of most fans.
In 1996, Tashery explained the audio editing she and Lynn did on their vid to the Virgule-L mailing list. It is quoted here with permission:
==Trivia==
In 1995, it was among a selection of Wiseguy fanvids handed by a fan to TV producer Stephen Cannell who was then working on a Wiseguy movie. The fan described Cannell's reaction as being cool with the concept of music videos as long as no money was made. He also thought that fanworks like vids extended the life of the show. Interestingly, even though many of the vid creators were on the same mailing list where the gift was announced, no public discussion took place about the wisdom of sharing fanvids with TPTB. Morgan Dawn's personal notes, accessed October 21, 2104, quoted with permission.
==Screencap Gallery==
File:Nights1.png|The vid opens with Sonny and Vinny both collapsing after a brutal fight. In this scene, Sonny is leaning against a jukebox which in the aired TV episode begins to play "Nights in White Satin."
File:Nights2.png|The focus shifts to Vinnie who announces: "I've made my peace Sonny" (referencing his betrayal of Sonny).
File:Nights3.png|Sonny challenges Vinnie's "peace" by asking him: "Remember the 60s Vinnie? How you gonna remember this? How you gonna remember me, Vinnie?"
File:Nights4.png|The vid then begins to intercut flashbacks to Sonny and Vinnie's time together, always returning to the present as the two men face each other while the jukebox continues to play. In this scene, Sonny is welcoming Vinnie to the Mafia with a kiss.
File:Nights5.png|After each flashback, the vid returns to the present. As the camera zooms in closer and closer on each man, the music swells to the lyrics "I love you."
File:Nights6.png|The final sequence of clips linger on Vinnie's face as he can no longer look Sonny in the eye.
File:Vinnieshame.png
File:Nights7.png
==References==
Category:Wiseguy Vids
Category:1993 Vids