Ramblings: Film language terminology

Here are some useful pieces of terminology used in film language and semantics dealing with the conveying of meaning:

In Film:
The Perceptual Level - This level consists purely of shapes, colors, textures and movement.

The Diegetic Level - Everything narratively denoted - Characters, objects, time, space, actions and events occurring in the "film world".

The Connotative Level - involves all the ‘symbolisms’ and metaphorical, analogical, and associative meanings that attach themselves to events and objects (or to relationships between
objects) outside of films, i.e., in culture.

The Subtext Level - involves hidden and suppressed meanings of symbols and
signifiers, framed by one of the “great narrative structures that obtain outside of films”. For example, the use of Freudian symbolism or the hero symbolizing a messiah (as in the Matrix) .

The Cinematic Level - accounts for the use of formal film/video techniques to produce particular artistic/formal/expressive results. For example, the use of a "wavy lines transition" to symbolize a character remembering a previous event.

In Semantics/Language
Five general ways of producing meaning, when using language:

We tell people how things are (Assertives)

We try to get them to do things (Directives)

We commit ourselves to doing things (Commissives)

We express our feelings and attitudes (Expressives)

We bring about changes in the world through our utterances (Declarations)

- I don't know if this is of much use, but I found, at least the film part, quite useful. Interesting to note is that films, in most parts, only work with assertiveness and rarely employ any of the other meaning conveyors - But that games do.