4. Who would be the audience for your media product?

The target audience for The Steps would be teenagers and young adults – a target group of approximately 15 to 24 year olds. Research shows that they go to the cinema the most out of the population, with 40% of 15 to 24 year olds year olds going to the cinema at least once a month and 25% of them making up the audience of all top 20 films within the UK in 2009. This age group also have a lot more disposable income than other age groups, as they usually have money from student loans and jobs without the responsibility of looking after and paying for the expenses of mortgages and having children. The majority of this age group being students, this also means that as they aren’t necessarily working they have a lot of free time to spend on going to the cinema and paying to watch films there.

This age group also make a very commercial target group as they can be easily pleased provided you follow a popular film formula. This can best be seen with the success of romcoms e.g. 10 Things I Hate About You, Bridget Jones's Diary or simple romance films e.g. the Nicholas Sparks novel to film adaptations such as Letters to Juliet and Dear John.

An example of a common film formula for romantic films would be: ‘boy meets girl; they fall in love; there is an obstacle to their love making them both miserable and breaking them up; boy does something amazing to help them get past it/the run for love – they live happily ever after’. The ‘run for love’ phenomenon is something which can be seen in many films e.g. Wicker Park, Bridget Jones's Diary, What Happens In Vegas etc.

Source (click to read more about cinematic formulas) @ http://www.bmoviecentral.com/bmc/bmc-articles/142-cinematic-formulas.html