Ocean Eyes(2016)
Beginning with Bilie Eilish’s first music video, “Ocean Eyes” (2016), we can truly see how her career catapulted after that. A young Billie, approximately 14, lip dubs the entire song in this performative music video. Positioned in the center of the frame, whilst singing her song, there is almost an icy-tone to the visual aesthetics of the music video.
Her cool-toned grey hair meshing into the backdrop highlights the play on light that is carried throughout the music video. As the music video performance goes on, the foreground begins to move. What appeared to be a backlit semi-translucent fabric-like backdrop appears to be multifaceted as the silhouette of hands and finger-tips imprint and create movement.
The theme of hands, recurs as Billie’s hands come into the frame and appear to be stained by a dark substance. Billie begins to make uncomfortable gestures with her hand as she continues to sing the song, this movement highlights the beats and pace of the music as she matches the musical score. The movements appear to be unrehearsed and almost flow so naturally with Billie’s singing that it creates a very pleasing visual motion. As the song splits into two harmonies, an additional layer of the same frame is added onto the original one and the editors appear to have experimented with the opacity and overlaying of the clips beginning at (1.44). This split of frame shifts our attention to the focus on movement in this MV. The movement of the foreground as well as the first layer and then the second layer all mesh together to create a very delicate and fluid-like aesthetic.
At (2.40), Billie begins to place her stained fingers onto the sides of her cheeks and allows for substance on her fingers to stain her cheeks. She smudges the streaks downwards onto in a kind of caressing-like motion. She softly moves her fingers up and down slowly, matching the pace in the music, as it has now slowed down nearing the end. The one-take like clip begins to fade into darkness and the last image prior to a black screen is Billies face stained with the dark streaks.
Ghida Dalloul 