Gavin (who is also credited as the director of the film) and Forsyth himself took on the role of William Monckton, the bushranger's young acolyte. Ruby Butler played the dual roles of Jess Anson (Fred Ward's fiancée) and the Aboriginal girl Sunday. The camera operator was Alfred J. Moulton, who had cinematography experience working for Pathé Frères (that had a branch office in Sydney). Thunderbolt was filmed in and around Lithgow during a two-to-three week period in October 1910. The Lithgow district "was specially selected by reason of the suitability of its surroundings". During the shooting of the film miners at Lithgow were on strike and a number were recruited as extras and "used in minor parts, such as bushrangers and mounted troopers". The footage depicting the death of Thunderbolt was filmed at a place known as "the second junction bridge" on the road between Bowenfels and Rydal. For the scenes that involved firearms, cartridges were used with the lead removed and replaced with soap. During the filming of the death of Captain Thunderbolt, the actor Jack Gavin later recalled that "the hard soap pellets had perforated my clothes in many places". The completed film was reported to be a four-reel movie of over three thousand feet in length. A later article in Sydney's The Arrow newspaper claimed Thunderbolt was the first four-reel film ever produced (at a time when the average length of a dramatic film was from 800 to 900 feet). An article in November 1910 in Sydney's The Newsletter described the completed Thunderbolt as a film that was "admirably produced, being as clear and as distinct as any yet shown in Australia". In mid-November Forsyth had an advertisement published in The Sun newspaper addressed "To Showmen", advising of the availability of his newly finished film Thunderbolt ("The Film That Draws the Crowd"). Thunderbolt was first screened in mid-December 1910 in the Queen's Theatre in Pitt Street in Sydney. In early December 1910 it was reported that the film depicting Thunderbolt the bushranger was "proving a big draw wherever exhibited, in fact a perfect money spinner", and Southern Cross Motion Pictures "is troubled to supply the demand made upon their film department". Forsyth, the manager, advised that "they have several other bushranging films in course of preparation". Moonlite Forsyth's film about Thunderbolt was followed by another based on the career of Captain Moonlite (Andrew Scott). The screenplay for