1893, West Orange, New Jersey... Thomas Edison is obsessed by a vision: What if I could do for the eye what my favorite invention, the phonograph, does for the ear? Edison's prototype, the kinetoscope, is jostled by Jack, a scruffy twelve-year-old who crashes into the lab while fleeing a truant officer. Edison's first inclination is to throw the brat back to the wolves but he recognizes something of himself in the boy and instead covers for Jack. The boy becomes a kind of Sorcerer's Apprentice to Edison, sharing the adventure, the late hours and the unrelenting energy of the world's greatest inventor as they create the first motion pictures.