The day after the debate, Verdoia was down again.

"I felt horrible," he says. "I thought I would be able to control the crowd better, and I felt that both men should have done better in their presentations. The only person who had a remote opportunity to bring that out was me. Beforehand, I said if they come out and preach only to those who already agree with them, this will fail. That's what they did. I thought it was a lost opportunity."

Thus ended a big week in the life of Verdoia, who, through a strange, coincidental confluence of events, became a recurring figure on local TV three of five nights. The documentary was 3 1/2 years in the making, but just happened to air the very week that the debate occurred.

Almost overnight, Verdoia went from respected, award-winning documentary filmmaker known by most TV viewers as the guy who pitched for pledge drives on the local PBS affiliate to star of two made-for-TV events.

Helen Whitney, the producer and writer of "The Mormons," never planned to make Verdoia The Face of her film. She initially called him to mine his vast knowledge of Mormon history and culture.

As a radio and TV reporter in Utah for some 30 years, Verdoia produced films on many LDS subjects — notably a biography of Brigham Young — and a book on Utah's struggle for statehood, and he had covered breaking church news stories, such as blacks being granted the priesthood, the ERA, the emergence of several church prophets, the firings of outspoken BYU professors, feminism in the church and so forth.

The first time Whitney called Verdoia they wound up talking for two hours. They continued to exchange hundreds of e-mails and phone calls in the coming years, sometimes in the middle of the night, as Whitney sought his help in telling the story.

Eventually, she flew to Salt Lake City and met with Verdoia over lunch, and this time he held court for three hours. Afterward, Whitney, who talked to more than 1,000 people about her project and interviewed 90 of them on camera, decided she needed to use Verdoia as one of her three consultants. During subsequent discussions she was so impressed by Verdoia's passion and knowledge of his subject that she decided to put him in front of the camera.

Verdoia was interviewed for 10 hours. He answered most of Whitney's questions, sometimes asking her to start again so he could get the wording right, and sometimes flat refusing to answer questions. "We covered aspects of the subject, such as the ERA debate and blacks getting the priesthood and so forth," he says. "I felt comfortable with that. But when she attempted to ask spiritual questions, I would stop and say I didn't want to answer it. That's not my expertise. I am not a theologian."