KDS ENTERTAINMENT × GOLDSTRAND MEDIA
60-Episode Premium Vertical Psychological Thriller
Three days. Three hours. Three seconds. The truth sets you free.
Series Overview
After a wrong turn onto HWY 515, five friends become trapped in a living forest that weaponizes their memories, secrets, fears, and deepest emotional lies. Escape is possible—but only when each of them stops believing the lie that has shaped who they became.
THE WOODS is a premium vertical psychological thriller built for relentless mobile viewing. Roads move, loved ones call from impossible places, time fractures, and comfort becomes more dangerous than fear. The Woods do not simply hunt their victims—they study them and turn private lies into physical traps.
The World
The Woods are a living intelligence capable of manipulating perception, memory, space, and time. They learn their victims before escalating.
Roads move. Loved ones call from impossible places. The Refuge offers favorite foods, clean clothes, and familiar voices—until its comfort decays into rot.
Format
9:16
Vertical Native
Designed for ReelShort, TikTok, Instagram, and the mobile-first platforms reshaping serialized drama.
45–60
Seconds / Episode
One primary dramatic event, one emotional turn, and one cliffhanger in every episode.
60
Episode Series
A complete five-survivor story with an expandable anthology engine for future victims and emotional lies.
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 follows the 3 / 3 / 3 pattern: three days experienced inside, three hours recorded outside, and three seconds when reality can collapse, reset, or change.
The recurring 3:03 becomes a visual signature of entrapment. In the finale, the clock finally advances to 3:04.
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
Every scare must reveal character, reveal a rule, force a decision, or alter the path to escape. Survival is emotional, not merely physical.
The question is not merely what secret they brought in. It is what lie that secret taught them to believe about themselves.
Casting Key Roles
Five factual secrets. Five emotional lies. One rule: don’t lie when it asks.
The Protector
Played by Justin Sweat
AGE: 24-26
Athletic, charismatic, and instinctively protective. Jason has built his identity around being useful after witnessing a murder as a child and denying what he saw.
Drives the Story
Being Needed vs. Being Chosen
If people need him, they will not leave him. His final truth is that he fears no one will choose him unless he is useful.
The Thinker
Played by Sekou Ade
AGE: 24-26
Grounded, analytical, and loyal. Jason’s best friend and the group’s pattern-reader, Thomas mistakes control for love when he interferes in Andy’s relationship.
Drives the Story
Love vs. Agency
He feared Andy would choose someone else, so he made the choice for her. Growth means returning her agency.
The Heart
Played by LaShae Monique
AGE: 24-26
Independent, resilient, intelligent, and guarded. Her chronic asthma turns psychological pressure into immediate physical danger.
Drives the Story
Abandonment & Agency
She covered for her father’s infidelity because she feared the truth would make him leave again.
The Spark
Played by Alyssa Raquel
AGE: 23-25
Vibrant, impulsive, funny, and emotionally expressive. Beneath her energy is the fear that she ruins everything she loves.
Drives the Story
Mistakes vs. Identity
She lost Nana’s four-generation ring, lied that it was safe, and hid that she distracted Jason before the crash.
The Wild Card
Played by Erik Peterson
AGE: 23-25
Sarcastic, adventurous, restless, and outwardly fearless. Nick uses humor and rebellion to hide a profound fear of failure.
Drives the Story
Failure & Self-Sabotage
He skipped a life-changing opportunity, let his best friend Josh take the blame, and planned to disappear rather than face home.
The Mythology Keeper
Played by J.R. Holther
AGE: 60s–70s
A weathered former survivor and oracle-like protector. Initially mistaken for a threat, he knows how the Woods tempt, imitate, and isolate.
Drives the Story
Rules & Sacrifice
Don’t lie when it asks. He stays behind during the final escape so the others can continue.
The Guide
Played by Silia Randall
AGE: 25-28
Calm, gentle, compassionate, and strangely timeless. A former survivor visible only to Jason at first, Cecille knows there is a way out.
Drives the Story
Hope & Forward Motion
Her exact nature remains unresolved. She becomes tangible, crosses into reality, and later guides another lost child.
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 · Thomas chooses Jason without needing him
Thomas↔Andy
Attraction fractured by manipulation · Andy reclaims her agency
Jason↔Andy
Protective instinct · both carry abandonment wounds
Pixie↔Jason
Her distraction before the crash becomes hidden guilt
Nick↔Thomas
Rebellion meets reason · uneasy survival partners
Andy↔Pixie
Truth gauntlet allies · honesty becomes a lifeline
The Stranger↔Jason
Mythology keeper · teaches what the Woods truly want
The Stranger↔Nick
Protector · saves Nick when the Woods attack
Cecille↔Jason
Guide and survivor · she sees through his denial without shaming him
Cecille↔The Stranger
Prior survivors · two unresolved paths through the mythology
The Mystery
1
The Woods study before they escalate—tempting, imitating, isolating, rewarding, and confronting each victim.
2
Three days inside. Three hours outside. Three seconds when reality glitches, resets, or offers a chance forward. Every clock reads 3:03.
3
A beautiful cottage of favorite foods and familiar voices is really a rotting shack. REST. BUT DON’T STAY.
4
Fear makes you run. Comfort makes you stay. Memory makes you turn back. Truth leaves the Woods with nothing to use.
“Fear makes you run. Comfort makes you stay. Memory makes you turn back. Truth sets you free.”
60-Episode Story Structure
One complete premium vertical thriller. Every episode turns character, mythology, and suspense.
01–04
The protector. The warning. The wrong turn.
Jason’s protector identity is established as the five leave for their trip, stop at Hollow Creek, encounter the first Cecille clue, and are diverted onto HWY 515.
Turn
An impossible fallen tree forces them onto the road that does not want to let them leave.
05–12
The road moves. The cabin remembers.
The crash strands the five inside the Woods. A perfectly prepared cabin knows their preferences, their loved ones, and the secrets they have not told each other.
Turn
The message changes from something is wrong to it knows us.
13–24
The Woods reach both sides of the boundary.
Families and law enforcement search HWY 515 while Jason meets Cecille, a guide no one else can see. She promises there is a way out.
Turn
Cecille reveals she escaped once before—and that truth, not navigation, is the key.
25–36
Fear makes you run. Comfort makes you stay.
Secrets become physical. The Stranger teaches the rules, and a beautiful refuge offers every comfort the five crave before revealing the rot underneath.
Turn
The forest announces: FIVE CAME IN. FIVE LIES. FIVE TRUTHS.
37–48
A secret is not the same as the lie beneath it.
Pixie, Nick, Andy, and Thomas face the beliefs their secrets created. Jason refuses until the Woods forces him to confront the frightened child he still judges.
Turn
Jason admits he protects everyone because he fears they will not choose him if they no longer need him.
49–53
Confession must become changed behavior.
False exits and personalized temptations test whether the five have truly changed. The Stranger stays behind while Cecille becomes physically tangible.
Turn
The five cross the closing threshold—and Jason brings Cecille with them.
54–60
Three days inside. Three hours outside.
The survivors reunite with family and begin repairing the damage their lies caused. Cecille discovers ordinary freedom in the real world.
Turn
The clock moves from 3:03 to 3:04. Deep in the Woods, Cecille offers another lost child a way out.
Scripts available upon request
Now Casting
Recurring, guest, and background roles are open for the upcoming thriller series. Filming in Georgia — local hire preferred.
Audition Materials
Audition sides, available roles, and full character breakdowns are available in the casting drive.
Audition Sides & Character BreakdownTo Submit
Email submissions to admin@goldstrandmedia.com with “The Woods – Casting” in the subject line.
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
Three days. Three hours. Three seconds. The truth sets you free.
A Goldstrand Media Production
