GOLDSTRAND MEDIA PRESENTS
in association with KDS Entertainment
You can run from your past.
But you can’t run from The Woods.
Logline
When five young Travelers become trapped inside a mysterious forest with no apparent way out, every path they take leads them right back to where they started.
As fear turns to paranoia and trust unravels, they begin to suspect the woods are alive — because they are.
The World
The Woods are not a place — they are a presence. Old, patient, hungry for secrets. Every traveler who enters carries something they tried to bury, and the forest knows exactly where to dig.
A cabin that wasn’t there yesterday. A radio playing a broadcast from a war that hasn’t started. Footprints in fresh mud that belong to no one alive.
Format
9:16
Vertical Native
Designed for ReelShort, TikTok, Instagram, and the mobile-first platforms reshaping serialized drama.
1–3
Minutes / Episode
Every episode is a single tightening turn of the screw. Cliffhanger in. Cliffhanger out.
60+
Episodes / Season
A bingeable spiral of paranoia, revelation, and dread. Built to be watched in one breath.
Director's Vision
The Thriller Engine
The Woods is designed to feel like a breath held too long. Tight close-ups, negative space, and sound design that turns silence into a weapon. We never show the monster — we show what the characters stop saying when they think it might be listening.
Each episode is a pressure cooker: one problem, one revelation, one lie exposed. The mystery is not a puzzle to solve. It is a loop the audience learns to fear.
The Time-Bend
Time in The Woods folds rather than flows. A character can walk for an hour and arrive before they left. A fire burns for a century without going out. The forest replays trauma like a record, forcing each stranger to confront the version of themselves they tried to outrun.
This is not time travel as a gimmick. It is emotional archaeology — the past literally catching up, demanding payment, rewriting what the audience thought they knew.
The Visual Language
Mist eats the horizon. Trees frame shots like prison bars. Daylight is unreliable — golden one moment, bruised the next. The camera stays handheld when the loop breaks, and goes still when the forest is watching.
The goal is disorientation without confusion: every frame should feel beautiful, lonely, and slightly wrong.
The Creative North Star
The forest is only as frightening as the people trapped inside it. Every supernatural beat is anchored in a human wound: guilt, grief, jealousy, shame. The audience keeps watching not to learn what the woods are, but to learn who these Travelers become when escape stops being an option.
The question is never “What is out there?” It is “What did you bring in with you?”
Casting Key Roles
Each one running. Each one carrying something the forest wants.
The Protector
Played by Justin Sweat
Age: 22–26
Confident, loyal, and always in control — until he isn't. Feels responsible for everyone.
Drives the Story
Guilt & Redemption
He hides his deep fear of failure and believes he must always be the strongest.
The Thinker
Played by Sekou Ade
Age: 22–26
Observant, intelligent, and skeptical. Best friends with Jason and the group's strategist.
Drives the Story
Faith & Discovery
He believes he's not good enough and constantly compares himself to others.
The Heart
Played by LaShae Monique
Age: 20–24
Compassionate, strong, and quietly fighting more than anyone knows. Lives with chronic asthma.
Drives the Story
Hope & Forgiveness
She fears being a burden and believes she's unlovable.
The Spark
Played by Alyssa Raquel
Age: 20–24
Free-spirited, funny, and the emotional escape for the group. Hides pain with sarcasm.
Drives the Story
Loss & Acceptance
She masks her deep insecurity and fear of being forgotten.
The Wild Card
Played by Erik Peterson
Age: 20–24
Charming, guarded, and carrying a past no one fully knows.
Drives the Story
Memory & Consequence
He witnessed a fatal hit-and-run as a child — and may have been responsible. Years later, he repeated the same mistake and left another victim behind. Pieces of that night are missing from his memory.
The Missing Piece
Played by Brian Adams
Age: 30–40
A former survivor. An oracle, not a villain. He knows the rules of the Woods — because he once broke them. He can guide, but never save. He can warn, but never interfere.
Drives the Story
The Truth
The forest didn't take him. It kept him.
Connections
Every bond is a lifeline. Every secret is a thread. Pull one, and the whole forest shifts.
Hover or tap a character to isolate their web
All connections
Jason↔Thomas
Best friends · loyalty & rivalry
Jason↔Andy
Protector · guilt & care
Andy↔Pixie
Emotional anchors · hope & spark
Pixie↔Nick
Attraction · two runners collide
Nick↔Thomas
Suspicion · secrets vs reason
Nick↔Andy
Shared wound · consequence
The Stranger↔Jason
Oracle · knows what he buries
The Stranger↔Pixie
Watcher · the language she speaks
The Stranger↔Nick
Truth-teller · the loop remembers
The Mystery
1
Every trail, every river, every horizon line — all of them lead back to the same clearing. Distance is broken.
2
They start seeing themselves in the trees. Older. Younger. Bleeding. Watching.
3
A cabin that wasn't there yesterday. A campfire that's been burning for a hundred years. A radio playing a broadcast from a war that hasn't started.
4
Their own names, etched into the bark of a tree no one remembers touching.
“The mystery of Lost. The tension of From. The time-bent vertigo of Dark.”
Five Seasons
A planned five-season descent. Every season tightens the loop.
S1
Five Travelers. One forest. No way out.
Jason, Andy, Pixie, Thomas, and Nick wake at the edge of a forest none of them entered — and every trail they take bends right back to the same clearing.
Cliffhanger
They find their own names carved into a tree no one remembers touching, dated over a hundred years ago.
S2
The forest gives them shelter. Shelter has a price.
A cabin appears overnight, stocked with journals written in their own handwriting that none of them remember keeping.
Cliffhanger
Thomas's real reason for being in The Woods finally surfaces — and rescue was never part of it.
S3
They are no longer alone in their own skin.
Older, younger, and bleeding versions of the group begin appearing between the trees, watching, whispering, and knowing things they shouldn't.
Cliffhanger
Pixie starts speaking a language she's never learned — and Andy remembers a life she never lived.
S4
Something has been keeping the loop running.
The Travelers discover they aren't the first victims — and they aren't being hunted. They're being studied by something far older than the trees.
Cliffhanger
A faction outside The Woods has been feeding the loop for generations, and escaping may cost more than staying lost.
S5
To leave The Woods, one of them has to stay.
The loop begins to unwind, forcing every buried secret into the light as the forest demands its final payment.
Cliffhanger
The only way out requires one of them to remain behind — and the choice will change everything they thought they knew about sacrifice.
Scripts available upon request
Sponsors & Investors
Vertical drama is the fastest-growing format in streaming. The Woods is built to monetize it.
$0.50–$2.00
Avg CPM, Vertical Drama
ReelShort, DramaBox, and ShortMax deliver some of the lowest acquisition costs in streaming — with watch-through rates rivaling premium TV.
70%+
Episode Completion
Vertical micro-drama averages 70–85% per-episode completion vs. 30–50% for traditional streaming pilots. Built-in cliffhangers compound retention.
$1B+
Category Revenue (2024)
The vertical drama market crossed $1B globally in 2024 and is projected to triple by 2027. Early IP positions sponsors at the front of the wave.
Multi-Tier
Sponsor Integration
Product placement, branded episodes, end-card spots, and character-driven integrations — engineered into the script, not bolted on.
Sponsorship tiers, equity participation, and territory-specific licensing packages are available. Full deck and financial projections provided on request.
Executive Producers
Executive Producer | Creator
Associate Producer | PLAYS LEAD ROLE: Jason
Executive Producer | Writer
Director | Executive Producer | Writer
Casting By
Aisle One Entertainment
You can run from your past.
But you can’t run from The Woods.
A Goldstrand Media Production
