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    I use an Olympus 4100PC. I’m used to it and I like the results I get. But people have had results with every kind of audio recorder—old reel-to-reel recorders, cassette recorders, minicassette recorders, all kinds of digital devices, even cell phones. Anything you have will work. The thing about recording EVP is that it can take some practice. That may sound strange—I mean, how hard is it to hit RECORD and ask a question? It’s not technique so much as your intent and keeping at it. Eventually the spirits seem to find you.
    I did everything properly. I was good—damn good. We gathered around the coach and he said, “I’m going to say who is staying and the rest of you—you’re gone.” He rattled off a few names, then silence.
    He hadn’t called my name. My shoulders slumped. I was angry and sad at the same time. I went up to the coach and said, “I don’t understand what happened. You said if I came here I’d be redshirted for the first year. You’d at least give me a chance. You’re not even giving me a chance right now.”
    He just said, “Well, your SATs weren’t good.” That’s the only reason he could give me. I came to suspect that politics also played a big part. At a Division I school, they’ve already selected their players regardless of who shows up for tryouts. Finishing first in the sprint may make the coaches rethink their choice, but really they know who they want ahead of time.
    I now had to face the fact that I wouldn’t be on the team. A lot of kids don’t realize it, but if you haven’t made it in your sport by college, it isn’t going to happen for you. Still, I was depressed. I wasn’t cut out for Division I soccer. I was crushed. I felt like a failure.
    I never have and never would give up playing sports. I still play basketball in pickup games almost weekly, but I had to accept that I didn’t have a sports career ahead of me.
    I rewired my brain and began to think of sports as my escape, something for fun, and I turned my full focus toward film. Back then, it was my biggest disappointment in life so far, but now I see that it was the best thing that could have happened, because it woke me up. I came to realize that film would be where I’d leave my mark.
    I’d begun college as a telecommunications major, but halfway through I realized it wasn’t for me. I had been working at the UNLV television station and was learning to do everything—I operated the dolly, pulled the wires, did the camera and the props. I wanted to know how to do everything in television production. There was a guy working there who really knew his shit. I went to him a lot when I wanted to learn more.
    “You want to do movies and all that?” this guy asked me.
    “Definitely,” I responded.
    “Then you need to change your major to film,” he said.
    That was it. I changed my major to film. The conversation we’d had was just a few seconds, but everything was so clear when he said it.
    I started seeing all these other students wanting to be directors, writers, actors, editors, cinematographers. I started taking film classes, shooting on 8mm and 16mm film for projects forcinematography class, and I began learning everything about the field. I was grasping how to break out and be open-minded when it comes to visual storytelling. I think either you have it or you don’t. If you can’t think outside the box, you don’t belong in film.
    I threw myself into the subject. I learned screenplays, I learned acts, I started to grasp everything—all of the logistics involved. If you’re going to capture great stories and events like haunted places and the paranormal, you need to have both the creative sense and a logistics sensibility. You may have a great idea on a camera angle or perspective, but if it requires cranes and helicopters to get that shot, it’s going to be expensive and will possibly break your budget. In film, you always need a plan B. School drilled that into us, but I’d later