Some good advice I saw before in writing children/YA was to make the characters a couple years older then the target audience. The thinking was that kids like to think of themselves as older then they are. So if your audience is 12 year olds, make the main character 14 or so. This was intended for books but I imagine it would hold true for movies as well.

Jerry, that advice holds true in Hollywood as well. First learned this working on a Disney project, always age the kids up a 2-4 years above your target demo. It's not only kids want to see youths older than them, conventional wisdom holds they resist going to movies with kids younger than they are. That's why whenever you see really young kids in a movie, you almost always see them have older brothers or sisters to balance out the youngest kids.

That is really good advice and I never really thought of that, especially since I have an idea for YA/HS-aged group of characters... thanks.

or a parent, Scott :) One of the things I've seen, especially in a tv-show like Disney's Kim Possible, or the Pixar movies is that the jokes often work on two levels: one for the young children, and the other for older children and adults watching, often with a pop culture or even industry insider reference. The other thing is that if you're targeting a movie for the under 5's, be warned young children *love* to watch movies over and over again.

I would say my main target would be tweeners, but I think it could also appeal to slightly younger kids and maybe even a little bit older. And my character is 16 so that seems to be a good age for him. Seeing Dog's Best Friend sell the other day and in general the spec market's success has been very motivating. Hopefully it will stay that way next year!