1911. Chicago lawyer Leo Harrigan and Florida proverbial snake-oil salesman Tom "Buck" Greenway, neither particularly committed and thus good at their respective jobs, accidentally get involved in the moving picture making business - one, two, three and four reelers shown at nickelodeons - Leo initially as a scenarist turned scenarist/director/editor and Buck as an action actor, despite neither initially knowing anything about their jobs and Buck in addition not knowing how to ride a horse and being afraid of heights, both things which he is asked to deal with in front of the camera. They both get into the business working for independent producer H.H. Cobb at a time when the big moving picture companies formed the Patents Company, using heavy handed tactics to prevent small companies, like Cobb's Kinegraph, from being able to make pictures by denying use of cameras under supposed patent. Via different routes, Leo and Buck initially meet at one of Cobb's secret sets located in the backwater frontier railroad stop of Cugamonga, California, so chosen to hide from the Patent Company. Leo and Buck's relationship becomes even more complicated as they both fall in love at first sight with Kathleen Cooke, an extremely nearsighted and klutzy Chautauqua girl on a national tour, she who also literally stumbles onto the Cugamonga set. Their personal and professional lives are presented over a four year period, those lives which are not only affected by the on-going battle with the Patents Company, and Leo and Buck's love for Kathleen, but their own growth within the business, the struggle for artistic control, and the changing face of the business which hits a milestone in 1915.