Chef Soldaat launched his latest carnival hit ‘Drink Organ’ on Friday. The carnival artist, in everyday life Joris Wijnen from Hoeven, based the song on the well-known tune from Phantom of the Opera. He went big with the accompanying video clip, for which he managed to attract a striking number of well-known faces from the carnival world.
Chef Soldaat previously came up with carnival songs such as ‘De Hele Te Te Tent’ and ‘Bunkeren’. The idea for this year’s song and clip came about before Carnival last year. “I came across an image of a horror sitting behind an organ playing Phantom of the Opera. I thought that was so cool, I immediately wanted to do something with it,” says Joris. “I quickly ended up with a drinking organ. After that, I had to think carefully about how to convert Phantom of the Opera into a carnival variant.”
From there, he started brainstorming what the ideal Carnival haunted house would look like. “I got the idea to have all the familiar faces in the carnival come back as horrors.” And so Lamme Frans became a ghost in a mirror, the duo Mosterd after the Meal turned into mummies and Ferry van der Zaande was given the role of a cursed doll. “Lamme Frans is the face of carnival. He was the first person I asked and he was immediately enthusiastic. The others followed.”
Immediately green screen under his arm, Chef Soldaat himself visited almost all the artists’ homes to make recordings. He later incorporated the images into the clip, which also featured Huub Hangop, De Alpenzusjes, Vieze Jack and Omroep Brabants’ own Tappie Thijs.
The clip
The video clip focuses on a haunted castle, where Chief Soldier and a group of friends think they have to perform during carnival. A large organ plays an important role in this. “I built that organ myself, together with the help of CV De Flierefluiters from Hoeven. We used a certain system to ensure that the keys of the organ could move. I spent far too many hours there,” he laughs.
Recordings
The recordings took place in September, at two locations. “The Bovendonk in Hoeven is a beautiful monastery that requires little effort in terms of decoration. We have also converted a large garage box wall by wall into a haunted house.”
It all took a little more time than he expected, Joris admits. “It has really gotten out of hand. Family and friends have missed me a lot in recent months. I thought: we’ll do that for a while. But in the end it takes you much longer. I’ve had a lot of fun with it.”
He received help from many people around him during the production. “My father and mother, uncle and aunt,” he lists. “And a lot of friends who played soldiers. Only the cameraman was hired. I would prefer to do that myself, but that wasn’t possible,” he laughs.
As if writing the song, building the set, directing and playing along wasn’t enough, Joris also edited the entire clip himself. “You see small steps during editing, but the end result is difficult to estimate. It was only when the clip came online and the super enthusiastic reactions poured in that I really realized what we had achieved.”
You are probably very curious about the video clip now. Check it out below!
