About the Author

Thank you for taking the time to look at my blog.

My name is William Scott Crawford and yes I'm one of those awkward people whose parents decided to call me by my Middle name.  I've lived in Kippen, a small village outside of Stirling in the Central Belt of Stirling, all of my life.

Five years ago, I married Heather and in January of 2010, we had our first child Reece.

Growing up, the popular toys of the day were the 12" Action Man (G.I. Joe in the US) figures and Star Wars toys.  As Action Man had been around for some time, I had some hand-me-down toys from my older brothers as well as some new ones.  These include the Talking Commander and the ever Popular Eagle Eye variants.  I had (and still have) a larger Star Wars Collection - like most collections many have missing parts - usually the weapons.

I also collected comics - The Beano when I was younger and moving onto The Eagle, Transformers and Battle Action Force as I got older.

I first got into M.A.S.K. when IPC Magazines brought out a Preview issue that was given away free with all of their Boys Comics of the day - including The Eagle, Battle Action Force and 2000 AD to name but a few.

At first, I was sceptical.  I used to collect a comic based on Bandai's Go-Bots and then Hasbro's Transformers - the two sets of toys seemed to be very similar at first.  When I read the Preview issue, I was worried that it would be too much like a cross between Action Force (G.I. Joe) combined with Transformers or perhaps too James Bond-esque.

However, I was hooked.  The comic came out every second Wednesday (every week after the first year).  Attending Balfron High School at the time, I had to get a bus to and from school and eventually, rather than waiting until I got home from school, I'd get up early and head down to the Newsagents so that I could get my "Fix" first thing in the morning.  This meant I could read it both on the way to and on the way back from School.  My Creativity started to flourish and I came up with my own ideas for Vehicles, Characters and Masks - some of which I sent off to Kenner.  Based on their response, I studied Art & Design and Technical Drawing at school as I had dreams of becoming a Toy Designer when I grew up.

Although popular in the UK, there didn't seem to be anyone else at school that I knew who was also into M.A.S.K.

After a year of publication, the Fortnightly comic became Weekly - to my great delight.  There was a cartoon show on TV, books and Holiday Specials that added further to the enjoyment. 

Then M.A.S.K. merged with The Eagle.

I'm not sure if it were sales of M.A.S.K. that had dropped or sales of The Eagle, but this sort of thing happened fairly regularly in the 80's with comics from the IPC/Fleetway stable.  I had already lost interest in The Eagle before this happened and I knew that it wouldn't be long before M.A.S.K. would become but a memory - along with my dream of designing new toys.

For a few years I used to revisit my M.A.S.K. comics and read them all through again.  I even had an attempt at writing a M.A.S.K. novel.

I was working in a Private Hospital when I read an article about a small independent TV Station serving areas of Glasgow.  I wrote to them and met up with one of their producers.  This lead to me developing some programming for them. Unfortunately, they went bust before my Programme "Very Important Kids" made it to screen.

A couple of years later, I entered the BBC's New Talent Competition and was down to the final 16 for developing a new TV Programme.

By late 2004, I found myself working in a Call Centre and thought to myself "this isn't what I want to do".  I looked around and saw many other of my colleagues who I thought, "most of these people don't want to be here either".

I was taking Customer Service Calls for one of the UK's Mobile Phone Networks and could see where Mobile Phone Technology was heading.  I had an idea to make video content for mobile phone users.  Locally, The University of Stirling has a great Film and Media Course and soon I was in contact with some students.  I didn't want to make them aware of my idea - in case they stole it - so decided to go down the route of attempting to make a short TV series based around Campus Life.  With Mhairi's help, we wrote a script in 2005. 

The start of this process coincided with my Mum passing away in March of that year and I guess throwing myself into this project was the distraction I needed to help me through this difficult period of my life.  As I was taking calls at the Call Centre I would hand write the script then type it up that night, making any changes as required.

A number of my Colleagues found out about my script and would read each handwritten page after I wrote it and would wait patiently until I'd finished the next.  Although one of my best accomplishments, we didn't get the project to film.

A number of years later, I revisited this project and completely rewrote it - adding more depth and humour and creating some much needed tension.  I completed this project in September 2009 and was looking for another Challenge.  This is when I started my M.A.S.K. script.

Through the remaining months of 2009 I worked hard on my script and managed to write approx 80 pages.  At the same time, my Father was going through treatment for Prostate and Bone Cancer.  On the 7th of January 2010, Heather gave birth to Reece and my priorities changed somewhat.

Around that time, my Father's health took a turn for the worse once his treatment stopped.  This meant that my time and my wife's was split between looking after our baby boy and my Father.

My Father passed away in May of this year and now I'm keen to finish my script.  I've been working on it a lot over the last few days and I'd say I'm close to finishing the project.  I'm not the only one with same idea and if you've found this website I'm sure that you have also seen Jason and Wyatt's site - if not click here.

Currently I'm working on this site, my script and some short story's that take place after the events of the script.  Once I have my script finished I have a clear plan for getting my movie made - I hope that you can take the time to support this page and my script.

I may not have as flash a website as Jason and Wyatt - I'm concentrating as much effort as I can on my script as that's the most important aspect of what I'm doing.

Feel free to leave your comments or to e-mail me at w_scott_crawford@hotmail.com

Thank you,

Scott.