Synopsis and Treatment

Technique – 3d Stop Motion

Genre - Fantasy, Dark

Target Audience – Any fan of stop motion, for a younger audience who like a dark twist, or an older audience who were fans of late 80’s early 90’s animation.

Synopsis

A student who finds himself so engrossed in a book that he becomes apart of the fantasy. A woodland adventure with a twist.

The Story

A student around about 20 decides to visit the library one day, his intention it to find a fantasy book. As he looks down the fantasy section, a particular book catches his eye; it seemed to have wobbled as if alive.
The student is drawn towards it, he feels a connection. He is however unaware how connected he may find himself. The book is called “The Wild Woods.” It contains no blurb or any form of summary so the character decides to place it down and get stuck in.
As the character begins to read he stumbles across the most beautiful illustration of a tree in a clearing. The connection grew again, as the character found himself desperate to touch it. He touches it, within a split second of impact, he is dragged in.
The character opens his eyes, after a few seconds he realises he’s no longer in the library; he is lying on his back in a clearing. A clearing very similar to the one he had seen in the book. Still confused he sat up to take in his surroundings. Whilst doing so, he spots his feet and realises his surroundings were not the only things that had changed. As he goes to touch his feet he sees his hands, and knew for definite that something was definitely wrong.
After further inspection, the character realises his physical anatomy has altered, he is no longer human, but more a puppet. After constant worry, the character finds he has all of a sudden instantly forgot his previous concerns; he has more pressing matters to contend with now. A noise had protruded from the bush behind him. Not only was the character now mutated in an unknown environment, he was alone and possibly in danger.
As he hides behind a tree anxious about what was in front of him, he finds himself pleasantly amused to discover he was in no danger at all. He was in fact only being watched by a rabbit, peeping out of the bush. Out of appreciation to recognising a friendly inhabitant, the character approaches the rabbit with an outstretched arm. Excitedly the rabbit pounces out of the bushes revealing the rest of its very leggy torso.
Taken a back the character falls flat on his back, lying in the shadow of the towering creature in front of him. It was unlike anything he’d ever seen before, in reality or even in a book. The head of a rabbit and the body of a spider, but it was huge, far bigger than he was. As the character scrambles away, he is soon halted, bumping into something else, tall and elegant. They were the slender legs of a deer. He knew he couldn’t assume the nature of this creature and tried to fool himself into thinking this was merely just a deer. But he could not help himself; he was desperate and so alone. He stroked the deer and mounted it, encouraging it to run, to help him escape from the eight-legged creature behind him. Almost surprised he had not found out sooner, he discovered the animal he was a riding was snarling. As the head turned to face him, he saw pearly white teeth, small golden eyes, and a snout covered in thick grey fur. It was a wolf and a very unwelcoming wolf at that.
The character is thrown off the creatures back and finds himself right where he started. Right in the middle of the clearing. More and more of these mutated animals began to emerge, surrounding him on every edge of the clearing. Just as he was beginning to give up hope, he felt something, it was the clutches of eight long spindly legs around him, and the cold hair raising breath of his possible killer.
But then, just as he prepared to die, he jumped at a whisper saying, “You shouldn’t be here”. The character turned at once and exclaimed “What?!”. But the creature was gone, they were all gone, had he imagined it? Now that they were talking he knew this had to be a dream, there’s no way he could justify talking animals. Just as he was contemplating this, a shadow appeared where he stood, only this time it was getting smaller and smaller. He looked up and saw the Rabbider (as he’d aptly called it in his head) descending down towards him on a single spindle of thread. This time though, the creature did not look menacing at all. It looked calm and quite elegant, as it appeared to break into song. “Let me tell you a tale, I’ll tell it true. I’d make sure to listen carefully if I were you”. The character did not say a word; he just stood very still in complete shock. Now not only did the creature talk, it sang too. The Rabbider continued with its tale, telling the character all about themselves and to fear the woods. By this point the creatures had all joined in singing each line simultaneously to the character. Then all in unison, the creatures chanted; Run run run, run, run run run, run, run run run, run. Until the song finally came to an end.
The music stopped and after several attempts to escape, he had given up and relaxed. This was all too soon though as the creatures began to close in again. Slowly they progressed closer and closer into the boy until he could feel their breath on his skin, and they pounced! Without even a flinch the character was gone.
Back in the library, the character awoke with a startle as the book fell to the floor. He picked it up and put it back on the shelf and walked out, hoping he could put this whole dream behind him. This was only until he scratched his head and realised something wasn’t right. He felt two pointy ears on top of his head, as well as a fury snout and sharp teeth. Just as he notices this, the book falls off the shelf, opening on the last page. There stood a creature with the body of a badger and the head of human.
The End.