Textual Analysis: Human by Christina Perri Music Video

The official music video for ‘Human’ premiered on January 3, 2014 and was uploaded to Perri’s YouTube account the following day. The video was directed by Elliot Sellers and features Perri as a robot sitting in the white room, with close-ups of the mechanics working inside of her body. As Perri begins to move, various body parts are shown to be bionic. Towards the end of the video, Perri begins to transform from a machine into a human as sparks fall behind her; her tattoos reappear as a symbol of her individuality and her robotic heart begins to pump fluid around.  

Perri’s music video opens with shows some sort of machinery, perhaps mirroring a human heart, spluttering sparks. This could be interpreted as the imperfections in perfection; the use of robotic elements contains stereotypes of perfection but with this heart-like feature spluttering sparks portrays a lacking in robotic features. The music involved in this creates a crescendo that abruptly stops as the next scene features Perri herself. The use in such abruptness portrays the sudden turn off of a machine system that could occur in an instant with the mere press of a button.

In these shots, the instrumental of the song moves in sync to the lightening and the enlargement of the screen. Perri sits in the centre of the room on some sort of round table; the lighting has altered between these two screen shots of the video. One consists of less lighting, enveloping Perri in a silhouette form, while the other spotlight’s Perri’s features completely.  The use of lighting here, is largely effective solely due to the exposure of something alternative to mundane, to the viewers. For instance when we come across the silhouette Perri, we see her in exactly the same position as before, but with a slight alteration. Viewers come across some sort of robotic wiring in the back of her thighs and stomach. These show complementariness to the lyrics for this song as they desire some sort of perfectionist from the singer hence putting her in a robotic state.

The use of a closeup shot in this particular shot has the purpose of two reasons: Firstly, conforming to Goodwin’s theory of the demand in close ups of the artist for viewers to easily recognise the artist and secondly to display the unusual eyes that Perri has. Her irises have some sort of mechanical or artificial light around the edges, creating an unusual and inhuman effect. Again, this conforms to Goodwin’s theory as the use of these eyes is amplifying to the lyrics of the song. At this point of the song, the artist has already started to sing. However, in the music video Perri doesn’t sing along with it. This is again something that can be considered as associative to the lyrics because viewers are expectant of her to sing, but she doesn’t. Although, later on in the music video she does begin to sing along with the song, but at the moment it is hard to depict whether this is a performance-based music video or narrative based. This confusion could be considered as something the video emits, an attempt to display Perri’s confusion, whether she is  human or a robot.  

The camera displays a brief movement, highlighting Perri’s features. From the above screenshot, to this, the camera develops a swift panning movement which connects to these shots maintaining constancy in the sequence and thus music video. Again, the highlighting of these features and camera movements associate to the song, display a close up of Perri’s features and perhaps question the stillness and perfection in her posture suggests inhuman physical characteristics.

 All through the first verse of the song , we come across quick cuts to moving mechanical devices. Throughout the first verse of the song, we also come across different angles and camera movements of Perri fixed in the same position. The idea behind this could be that the constancy in these mechanical devices carrying out the same task repeatedly could be similar to the repetitive demands asked of Perri. Her fixed position is complementary to the fixed tasks these mechanical devices are programmed to do, almost portraying her programmed to sit in that position. However, it can also be considered that these mechanical movements are perhaps internal models in Perri that are preparing for Perri to move, suggesting cyborg qualities.

The build up to the chorus features shots of Perri beginning to slowly move in sync to the song. This could a crosslink to the lyrics as during the chorus she highlights the humanity in her and outcomes Humans would likely come across if they were to come across such impossible tasks. As well as Perri’s change in position, changing in lighting also becomes evident. The room suddenly becomes brighter and clearer, highlighting and exposing the appearance of Perri and lightly pulsing to the keys of the piano, almost as if it were mimicking a pulse. As opposed to the contrast of dark and light evident during the first verse as the room constantly changes in brightness to the tune of the song, perhaps mimicking a functional robot. These two techniques in terms of the lighting remain this way through the whole music video, amplifying the contrast between perfection to a state where a person develops robotic features or human qualities in while a person makes mistakes.

Again, different angles of the same behaviour (which in this case is Perri walking) has portrayed, one of which involves a shadow of Perri walking. This idea is simple, yet holds curiosity in the video hooking viewers in. Cuts throughout the music video take a slow pace, as if viewers are required to take in Perri. The setting itself is bathed in white with flickering lights, it can be considered that the white room Perri is in may be some sort of prison or perhaps a stereotype of a white room where the mentally ill are locked. The main purpose of this is to show entrapment and captivity that the demand in perfection is causing off Perri.

During this bridge, the pace begins to quicken as we come across quick cuts and flickering. This is in correspondence to the crescendo of the song and its bridge. This complements Andrew Goodwin’s theory as during the bridge of the song, the shots complement to the crescendo, creating a montage of the sparks flying from her internal system and flashes of Perri singing. Also during the flashes to wear Perri sings we also come across a flickering effect, much like the flickering effect I casted on my flashback scenes in my movie opening. However, these effects displayed sparks emitting off the screen.

The utilisation of Perri’s tattoos revealed to the viewer’s suggests a sense of individuality, a common trait humans share. The sparks raining upon Perri and the shot of her robotic heart pumping blood suggests Perri’s transformation from robot to human. This is revealed through the close up shots of her tattoos on her forearm and the close up shot of her arm drawing in blood as well as the wide shot displaying falling sparks are illustrative of her robot features disappearing, and in its place forming a human. The shot of the robot heart drawing in blood is again evidence of this transformation and conveys another point conforming to Andrew Goodwin and the association between lyrics and visual effects.

Watching Behind The Scenes of Perri's Human music video was an interesting experience. having first hand views on the music video by the director and Perri. As well as the bases to these different unique shots used in the video, I learned the basis to the song and why it was so simplistic which was because a dramatic song like this did not require a story line to the video.