A look inside Hollywood and the movies : No Money but Plenty of the Vision Thing : Two secretaries aim to move to the other side of the desk after ‘Sweet Potato Ride’ comes out

Kimberley Greene and Camille Tucker were two movie industry secretaries when they hatched a plan at a lingerie party in late 1991. “We started talking about making a movie and figured out we had to be out on our own,” Greene says.

Now that their debut effort, a 40-minute short called “Sweet Potato Ride,” is nearly ready for screening, Greene and Tucker, both 24, could soon be the latest African-American filmmaking duo, in the tradition of Warrington and Reginald Hudlin (“House Party,” “Boomerang”) and Allen and Albert Hughes (“Menace II Society”).

With one or two distinctions. Green and Tucker’s gender makes them an obvious standout in an industry that hasn’t shown female African-American filmmakers many opportunities. Ditto their secretary jobs (Greene assisted “Leap of Faith” producer Michael Manheim, while Tucker recently worked for Touchstone Pictures President David Hoberman). They didn’t even go to film school.

“Sweet Potato Ride,” now in the final polishing stages, hasn’t made the industry rounds. And invitations to the film’s first unveiling, a benefit screening at the Baldwin Hills Theatre on Sept. 30, are only starting to go out.

Still, those who have seen the film, a deftly composed day-in-the-life drama about a 10-year-old boy who lives in the Crenshaw district, are convinced that Greene and Tucker have the right stuff. Not just filmmaking skills but “ambition and drive,” says Manheim. “I’ve seen the film and (they) did a tremendous job,” he offers. “Instead of talking about it, they went out and just made the movie. And I applaud them for that.”

Greene, who directed “Potato” on top of co-writing and co-producing chores, holds an MBA from UC Berkeley; her father is the chief of surgery at Centinela Hospital. Tucker, the daughter of the late Walter Tucker Jr., a former mayor of Compton, and the sister of Congressman Walter R. Tucker III (D-Compton), won an undergraduate award for poetry while majoring in English literature at UCLA.

After writing a few drafts of “Potato” in early ’92 (18 were written altogether), Greene and Tucker found their most influential supporter in director Bill Duke (“Sister Act II,” “Deep Cover”). A veteran of what he calls “guerrilla filmmaking,” Duke was naturally sympathetic. He steered them toward producer Ashley Tyler, who managed to persuade various Hollywood hardware suppliers--Panavision, Eastman Kodak, Deluxe Labs--to donate equipment and services.

The companies’ generosity was probably prompted, says Greene, by the April ’92 L.A. riots. “I think it got to people,” she says. “For us, it was an unfortunate fortunate event. We found a lot more financial support after the riots.”

“Sweet Potato Ride’s” $22,000 tab, all of which went to “barely” paying actors and crew, was raised through several cash donations from companies such as Amblin Entertainment, Technicolor and Bank of America.

The duo hired cinematographer John Demps (who filmed Matty Rich’s upcoming “The Inkwell”) as well as “Boyz N the Hood”’ casting director Jaki Brown. The storyboards were drawn by artists behind the underground comic “Brother Man.” Ron Stacker Thompson (who was executive producer along with Duke and Tyler), helped by sharpening the script throughout filming, which began with an eight-day shoot last September and finished in March.

One of the more enterprising ways that Greene and Tucker obtained cheap film stock was to beg for “short ends”--unexposed film left over from reels that have been used on major movies and TV shows--and then trade them in for fresh stock. The idea came from Duke, who used the same tactic when he made his first film, “The Hero,” when he was a student at the American Film Institute. “It’s like exchanging Coke bottles for cash at the supermarket,” he relates.

“We had no experience but a lot of vision,” says Tucker. “Our strategy was, we wanted to be the most naive, least experienced people on the set, and just pick up everything.”

Greene and Tucker have three feature-length scripts in the works all set in Los Angeles--they described them as “an urban thriller,” “an urban love story” and “a hot urban sophisticated relationship movie.” They don’t have an agent yet but “we’re definitely looking to meet as many people in the industry as we can, and hopefully go to some of the festivals.”

Their immediate career strategy is to wait until the Baldwin Hills screening--”Our debut, our wedding,” they call it--and let things progress from that point.