The Fabelmans

For the scenes of Sammy filming his own 8mm films, Steven Spielberg decided to have the character re-create the exact ones he made during his childhood, and worked with cinematographer Janusz Kaminski to ensure that they were portrayed as accurately as possible, but with improvements in the camera angles. A few of the films portrayed in this film include the Western short film that he made with his fellow Boy Scout friends in order to earn the photography merit badge, the war short film Escape to Nowhere (1961), in which he used his school bully by casting him in the lead role in an effort to face his fears, and Spielberg's re-creation of the train wreck scene from Cecil B. DeMille's The Greatest Show on Earth (1952).

Spielberg remarked "It was joyful being able to recreate those films. ... I shot a lot of films when I was a kid on 8mm. It was unique in those days. Not a lot of people were going out and shooting in 8mm. It was physical; it was a craft. You had to sit there with a...splicer, and then you had to scrape the emulsion off the film in order to get a seal so when you put glue on it, you literally glued the film together. And I must say, I miss it."

Younger Sammy Fabelman's eyes are blue, while the older Sammy Fablelman's eyes are brown.

Two dedications to Spielberg's real life parents Leah Adler and Arnold Spielberg appear after the closing credits.

Featured in Amanda the Jedi Show: This Movie was Shockingly Terrible - Best and Worst of TIFF 2022 (2022)