Bermudian Vance Chapman is making a name for himself as one of the top young screenwriters in Canada.

A year ago Playback, a magazine that keeps tabs on the film and TV production industry in Canada, asked talent agencies across the country to pick the best up and coming writers, directors and actors.

The name Vance Chapman was amongst those forwarded. His credentials are long and his achievements impressive, since he enrolled into the MFA programme at Howard University in Washington DC and won the Paul Robeson Award for his short film "In America".

After receiving his Bachelor of Arts Degree from Hampton University in Virginia, Chapman moved to England where he studied filmmaking at the famed London International Film School (LIFS). He then worked in Bermuda as a substitute teacher, at which time he began writing scripts and decided to enrol into the MFA programme in Film at Howard University.

After two years at Howard, Chapman, who was born in Toronto but grew up in Bermuda, moved to Toronto in 1993 to take advantage of the city's growing film industry. The rest, they say, is history, as the talented writer attended the Canadian Film Centre's Fall Lab programme.

He also went on to work on several feature films (Rude and Soul Survivor among them) and music videos and received much needed on-set experience.

In 1995 Chapman began to write film reviews for Word and Fuse magazines, then began directing music videos, commercials and short films. His last video was nominated for Best Rap Video on Much Music in 1996 and several commercial spots he did for USGL, an upstart basketball league in Denver, Colorado, aired in the US that fall.

Next, Chapman moved into post production. He worked as the assistant to the post production manager at Norman Jewison's Yorktown Productions, followed by a two-year stint as their administrative assistant. It was at that time that began to write his feature script "Karma" and in 1997 he returned as CFC's writer in residence.

"I loved it," says Chapman of the experience. "As a writer that was the single most important occurrence for me, being the writer resident at the Film Centre.

"I think I always did want to be a writer, I did English Literature in university. When I left university I was thinking about trying it out in LA (Los Angeles) but immigration-wise it was easier to come to Toronto and the sign was that there was going to be a boom in movie and television production in Canada. I came here right before that started which was a big help."

Chapman is also the author of a new novel and many adapted screenplays and his experience with music videos helped him form a relationship with Toronto's Raje Productions which produced his feature film "Karma", which he had work shopped in Vancouver and at the CFC.

Chapman is headed to Chicago next week to be on the jury for the Chicago Film Festival.

"It's so hard coming to a metropolis like Toronto and getting your foot in the door," he says.

"I think through having met people in the industry, along with getting into the Film Centre almost immediately when I got here, I was really lucky."

He added: "Everything is relative, considering that Toronto isn't like LA, the main industry in movies and television. Because of the fact that Toronto can stand in for a lot of different cities, there is a large percentage of American films and television shows that are actually shot here.

"Financially it is not as rewarding as it would be in LA but I think the quality of life here is much nicer."

Presently, Chapman is working for a small production company called Leda Serene Films which, in conjunction with Vision TV, is producing a West Indies influenced comedy called "Lord Have Mercy".

"It's set in a Jamaican storefront church and we want to do 13 episodes (for the year)," he explained.

"Right now we're just doing the pilot and the bible which is basically a fictional history of all the characters and the church, all the background stuff."

Chapman is heading up the writing team on the sitcom where the primary source of the humour is the ongoing friction between the ambitious but inept Youth Pastor Gooding and his pragmatic, easygoing father-in-law Pastor Stevens who lives are further complicated by the offbeat array of eccentrics and misfits who congregate at the church.

Co-created and co-produced by British arrival Frances-Anne Solomon, who is also directing the 13-part series, and Chapman, the series is a cross between the 'Britishcoms' "Bless Me Father" and "Desmond". Canada's large Caribbean population should be able to identify with it.

The series is scheduled to go into production this Fall with plans to air in 2002. It stars some of the biggest names in Caribbean comedy today, among them Jamaica's Oliver Samuels and Trinidad's Rachel Price. The soundtrack is being done by calypso superstar David Rudder.

In 1999 and 2000 he was scriptwriter and story editor for a CBC series "Drop the Beat", writing four of the episodes for the first season. When the show was renewed for a second season he returned as the senior story editor and staff writer.

Chapman, 32, is keeping his options open, not knowing where his talents will take him, but also realising he has the credentials to achieve bigger things. His recent work was the 22-part series Hip Hop which was done with Alliance Atlantic.

"If I got the chance to go to LA I would," he admits.

"I did meet a woman from Los Angeles who was here for the Film Festival in Toronto a couple of weeks ago and her and I talked about possibly doing some projects together."