Interests in motion: The film medium through the eyes and lenses of young Scandinavian filmmakers

This chapter examines youth media from a Scandinavian perspective, based on the results of a recent study about learning paths among young filmmakers in Denmark, Norway and Sweden. We deal specifically with how the film medium as a knowledge domain, or a field of practice, is represented through the discourses of young Scandinavian filmmakers. The chapter introduces three filmmakers and their submitted films. The analysis – which uses a social semiotic approach to communication and meaning making – is focused on their enclosed descriptions of a scene they felt satisfied with and their motivations for highlighting that specific scene. The aspects of the scene they point out are seen as representations of the film medium as a knowledge domain, based on certain assumptions about how the medium works and what can be regarded as marks of quality within the different aspects of filmmaking they focus on. The Scandinavian context for youth filmmaking is presented briefly.