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There’s a scene in Ingenious where Sam, the seat-of-his-pants flying salesman, convinces Matt, the quirk-filled inventor, to gamble away the money they have to re-invest in their novelty gift business at the dog track. His brilliant can’t-lose method? Bet large on the dog that drops a deuce before getting into the gate. It’s slightly less than scientific, but there’s a good chance that writer/producer Mike Cram was feeling a blend of what Matt and Sam felt at the track when he and director Jeff Balsmeyer emerged from the festival circuit without any viable distribution offers. There were deals on the table, but nothing close to ideal, meaning Cram and company were about to take a massive gamble. It’s a position that thousands of filmmakers find themselves in every year, but Ingenious was different in one specific way: the guy playing the slick co-lead had just been nominated for an Oscar after...

You’ve probably never heard of the film “Ingenious,” but it’s in an undeniably unique position for a low-budget indie looking for finishing funds on Kickstarter. Shot in the Tucson area in 2008, the based-on-real-life story of a struggling inventor and his salesman friend who finally hit on a successful idea was directed by Jeff Balsmeyer and written by Mike Cram. It had its world premiere at the Santa Barbara Film Festival and played more than a dozen other third-tier fests throughout 2009, just as “The Hurt Locker” was working a similar circuit. This is relevant because “Ingenious” stars Jeremy Renner. We all know what happened from there. “Locker” won the big prize at the Academy Awards, while Renner was nominated for a pair of Oscars (“Locker” and “The Town”) and cast by every studio looking for the next big star. In the last 10 months alone, Renner has appeared in a trio of.