Ron Mann can now add actor and music-video director to his credits, having just completed a video for up-and-coming indie rock group Two Hours Traffic, set to premiere on MuchMusic next week.

The Genie-winning director of docs including Grass, Go Further and Tales of the Rat Fink says he was taken by the band from Charlottetown after he saw them perform at the Atlantic Film Festival last year.

‘I went up to them afterwards and told them if they ever needed a rock video made, to call me,’ Mann tells Playback Daily. ‘Six months later, they did.’

Production on the video for the song Jezebel got underway last month at Toronto’s Pie in the Sky Studios, after Mann wrote the script, based on the 1965 family comedy That Darn Cat. Stacey Dodge (Sons & Daughters) produced, while John Tran (Mozartballs, Cheating Death) was director of photography.

‘There’s a documentary element to it, in that it’s a behind-the-scenes look at the making of a music video…while a cat causes havoc on the set,’ says Mann, adding that he also wanted to pay homage to French director François Truffaut’s comedy Day for Night.

The 48-year-old Toronto native says it was refreshing to shoot and wrap the $50,000 HD project in seven days. ‘I typically take three years to make a movie,’ he adds.

Mann, who makes a cameo in the video as a director, is currently working on the doc Examine Life for the National Film Board and TVOntario, about contemporary philosophers. He is also developing a movie about U.S. pop-culture writer and humorist Chuck Klosterman (Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs).

The video for Jezebel premieres on MuchMusic July 24, coinciding with the release of the band’s album Little Jabs from Bumstead Records.