Filmmaker continues building on big break from 2005's 'New York Doll'

"From the first time we talked it seems like we had a lot of similar influences and really hit it off from day one," Barber said. "We found we had a lot of things in common and similar sensibilities."

Barber believes the defining characteristic of Whiteley's professional palette is his knack for telling stories.

"Because Greg's such a good storyteller," Barber said, "he's usually the guy everybody in the room wants to talk to."

In terms of high-visibility documentary projects, Whiteley has been in production for several years on a documentary about Mitt Romney's 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns. However, Whiteley refused to comment on the progress of the movie or any aspect of its production.

Making the leap

Documentary filmmakers can walk the line and stick with low-cost documentaries, or branch out to the higher-stakes realm of scripted feature films. To hear Whiteley talk about that decision as it relates to his career, his intention to take the plunge into scripted features quickly becomes apparent.

"There are plenty of examples of people who've shown their chops in the documentary film world and then transitioned to the scripted world later on," he said. "I think my real skill lies in just being able to tell stories, and that translates into a lot of different mediums — and I certainly think it translates from the documentary world into the scripted world."

As a friend and mentor to Whiteley, Flaherty is very familiar with the director's capabilities. And as the president of Walden Media, it's no stretch to say the man knows a thing or two about spotting directorial talent that can transition to feature films.

"I think (feature films) will be a natural transition for Greg," said Flaherty, who is also a member of the Deseret News Editorial Advisory Board. "In my perspective it's all storytelling. With documentaries it's a much more difficult challenge to hold an audience's attention, and so I think that for Greg to have a chance to really shape and mold a script and be involved in developing a story, in my mind there's no question that he's going to be a great feature-film director."

Several times in recent years Whiteley has read through scripts of feature films for which he was under consideration to be the director. But to date, nothing has generated the kind of mutual interest such that Whiteley wanted to work on a project that also wanted him as its director.

"Ultimately Greg and I both want to do narrative filmmaking together," said Rod Santiano, who has been the cinematographer on several projects helmed by Whiteley. "I was under the impression that he just doesn't have the opportunities, but he gets scripts frequently and is always turning them down because they just don't live up to his standards of good storytelling."

Whiteley and Santiano are both working on an ongoing documentary project that delves into the late Catholic priest Henri Nouwen's powerful, faith-promoting book "The Return of the Prodigal Son," that meditates about the famous Biblical story.

Faith and family

As a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who lives outside of Utah, Whiteley knows from firsthand experience that a lot of people have misconceptions about Mormons simply because they don't now anybody who is Mormon. By the same token, though, he revels in vanquishing anti-Mormon biases by simply allowing his ebullient personality to shine through.

"People have these perceptions about the Mormon church, and oftentimes they are a negative perception," Whiteley said. "If you go anywhere where people just don't know a lot of Mormons, they're going to attempt to put you in a box.

"But if it's a negative box, or there are negative connotations that go along with that, they quickly melt away as soon as they get to know you. … All you have to do is hang out with any member of the LDS church for five or 10 minutes and there will be probably a number of Mormon stereotypes that will be questioned."