About 2400 hours of footage was collected. Director Teller had trouble editing the footage down to feature-film length and considered stopping the editing process all together. He consulted his friend Penn on where to go next, and Penn gave him a one sentence plot summary: "A man discovers how to create art without knowing how." This was all Teller needed to get the film down to feature-film length.
It took Tim Jenison five years to finish reproducing the Vermeer painting; according to the film, it took Jenison 7 months (213 days) to rebuild the room, and 4 months (122 days) to actually paint the painting.
Teller was the fifth choice to direct.
Penn Jillette and Tim Jenison produced the movie themselves.
There is no proof that Vermeer or other famous painters of his era (say Rembrandt) used Tim's mirror-technique. One argument against this mirror-copying is the work View of Delft (Gezicht op Delft) which is a city view of Delft. It shows air and clouds reflecting in water. This real-life view would have constantly changed during the day, rendering a mirror useless.