Emergency room doctor from Kingston, Ont., directs Tragically Hip video

TORONTO – At Max Montalvo’s two jobs, the word “cut” has widely divergent meanings.

You see, by day (and late nights, early mornings and weekends), Montalvo is a staff emergency doctor in Kingston, Ont. And in whatever free time he can carve out, he’s a filmmaker, directing music videos by Sarah Harmer, Stripper’s Union and, most recently, the Tragically Hip.

Some of us get bleary-eyed at the mere thought of patrolling an ER night shift, but Montalvo says he’s found a balance — and, surprisingly, wielding a camera can sometimes be just as stressful as a scalpel.

“I sometimes think that filming can be as exhausting and challenging as if you’re working a busy string of shifts,” the 45-year-old said in a telephone interview this week.

“But as a friend of mine said one time: the difference is no one is clapping after you sew up their finger.”

Montalvo has been practising emergency medicine for a decade, while his filmmaking career took off more recently when he directed 2010’s “El Payo,” a documentary about northern Ontario flamenco guitarist David Phillips, who died in 2002.

Montalvo met Tragically Hip guitarist Rob Baker through mutual friends and gradually developed a relationship with the rest of the band.

Still, it was a special joy for Montalvo to watch and shoot the recording sessions for the band’s recently released disc, “Now For Plan A.” Determined not to use the resulting footage for a typical promotional clip, Montalvo instead cut an arty, wry, black-and-white video that runs more than 11 minutes, includes almost no English and features a performance by Canadian metal outfit Kooznetz superimposed over images of the Hip recording.

One YouTube commenter summed it up as “self-indulgent BS” that led to an 11-minute, 21-second “hole in my life.”

That feedback tickled Montalvo.

“I love that,” said the director, whose wife has produced all his projects. “It’s better to hear strong opinions, if it’s good or bad. It’s way better than: ‘Aw, it’s nice.’”

Well, the Hip loved the video and commissioned Montalvo to helm clips for two more songs from their well-received new record. For the driving “At Transformation,” Montalvo created an oblique visual collage, while he took a different approach for “Lookahead,” released this week.

Shot at Toronto’s Milagro Restaurant, the video finds the Hip dressed as a mariachi band serenading a nervous man and his more free-spirited date.

Surprisingly, the clever clip actually has autobiographical roots — Montalvo spent his childhood until he was 15 in Mexico, and used to get incredibly anxious as a kid when mariachi bands would stroll over to his restaurant table. And the video is a family affair, featuring cameos from Montalvo’s brother-in-law (as the uneasy protagonist) and his mother, who’s an artist.

Montalvo — who, in addition to his other duties, also has a nearly five-year-old son — spent about seven hours on the shoot and up to three weeks editing the final video together, working in his scarce spare time.

But he says filmmaking isn’t a mere hobby for him. And he gets something different from making videos than he does from his regular gig as a doctor.

“The process (of making a video), when I look back at it, is incredibly fulfilling,” he said. “It’s a different kind of gratification.”