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Presentation Videos
‘HAPPY TEARS’ (2001)
 April and Danny: April and long-time friend and confident Danny happily smile during around of treatment on ‘Family Day’ at Renaissance House (now defunct) on Feb. 19, 2000.
The poster child for Odd Squad’s drug abuse videos, April Reoch (aka Shannon), was murdered in December, 2000. While others were opening their Christmas presents that year, members of the Odd Squad were at the morgue unzipping her body from a large gym bag. Her casual roommate had smothered her to death for a few dollars of stolen rent money and her body was left out with the garbage. So disrespected in death, and so central to the initial works of the Odd Squad was she, that April was honoured by a police memorial march to, and eulogy at, a local church. Though produced quickly under difficult logistical circumstances, this touching memorial video pays tribute to a young lady whose legacy lives on in film as a tragic example of where of the evils of drug abuse can lead. ‘REMEMBERING CARLEE’ (2001)
 Carlee and Friends: Childhood friend Suzy and Odd Squadder Al Arsenault hang out with Carlee when she was in treatment. So strong was the call of the drugs, nothing they could do or say could keep her in treatment.
Carlee Gadbois was the second of Odd Squad’s six original film subjects to die a drug-related death. The last eleven months of her short and painful life was spent in the hospital with a multitude of serious life- and limb-threatening illnesses. Who can forget her badly infected forearm from the stark footage in Through a Blue Lens. Although it was an amputation waiting to happen, Carlee allowed the Odd Squad to film her living Hell on earth as a visual deterrent for others not to follow her footsteps. The normal upbringing and sense of humour of this bright young lady shone through the cloak of death that finally and mercifully covered her after a drug overdose. ‘60 MINUTES AUSTRALIA’ (2001)
 Randy Visits an Old Friend: Randy Miller, with an entourage of media, visits with an acquaintance from his days on the street.
The drug situation in Vancouver has garnered international notoriety, with 60 Minutes Australia sharing in the expose of this festering Skid Road to the world. The carnage that drug addiction left in its wake did not go unnoticed as the crew from ‘down under’ rolled tape of the Odd Squad officers walking in a sea of human misery that they call their beat. Oddly enough, the strength of the human spirit shines through and dark humour springs from unlikely corners of the most dimly lit alleys. ‘A SYMPHONY OF PSYCHOSES’ (2004)
 Pills and Flaps: Drug roulette is not a game worth playing. Every time you use, remember that there is no quality control. What are you putting into your body and what is it costing you?
This video tragically shows psychotic drug users, tweaking, picking at skin and sidewalk, dancing frenetically or falling asleep after week-long coke runs. Some search in vain for errant pieces of rock cocaine or desperately try to brush off invisible and non-existent parasites or snakes. Set antithetically to beautiful classical music, these scenes of drug-induced madness reveal the ugly and haunting side of drug abuse few seldom see. Produced as an in-house educational video for an addictions medicine doctor, A Symphony of Psychoses visually exposes some of the common psychoses related mainly to cocaine and crystal methamphetamine abuse. |