This film's opening prologue states: "Australian poet, Henry Lawson wrote hundreds of poems and stories. In 1896, only one year after the world's first public film screening, Lawson wrote a fictional film story which he called 'The Australian Cinematograph'. This film, based on that story, was made to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of Lawson's death".
This film is included on the 2002 Australian DVD release of Film Australia's Outback.
This film was made to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the passing-away of Australian writer Henry Lawson.
The National Film and Video Lending Service of Australia says of this film in its catalog entry: "An interesting aspect of the film is that although written in 1896, Lawson [Henry Lawson] had anticipated development of cinema and had written his story as though he was directing a camera. The film was shot using the directions written by Lawson in the days when cinema was no more than a curiosity". The name of Lawson's short story from which this film is based is called 'The Australian Cinematograph' (1897).