Robbie Williams: Strong music video analysis

    Robbie williams' music video "strong" starts off with a shot of him going into a swimming pool, with luxuriously beautiful surroundings, showing that he has wealth and is well off.
    This shot, like most in this video, is shot in the style of a home video, to give the music video a strong sense of being an intimate glimpse into Robbie Williams' life, which ties in nicely with the song, which itself has a very personal theme, as Robbie Williams is admitting that he himself is not "strong" like everyone thinks and has personal problems of his own such as smoking to many cigarettes - "my breath smells of a thousand fags", and growing old and becoming like his father- "and when im drunk i dance like my dad".        There are more shots of Robbie Williams backstage and in his hotel room, further showing an intimate side, and these are shot with a hand held camera, which is unconventional in a music video.

    The other shots used in this video are archive footage of gigs that Robbie Williams  has performed and in parts, his singing is synced to the words in the song, returning partially to music video convention.    Shots of Robbie Williams backstage are used after shots of him singing to huge crouds to make the audience believe they are seing Robbie's reaction after the gig.    Also, shots of Robbie Williams and his dad are used when he referres to the his father in the song to give the audience something to refer to, and to put a face to the name.    Often, close up shots of Robbie Williams' face while he does things such as working out are used to show his face looking unhappy, despite his fame and wealth.
    The overall purpose of the music video "strong" is to give fans a taste of the "real" Robbie Williams. Backstage we are given an insight into his frolics with the band and a view of what life is like from Robbie's point of view. The use of a handheld camera gives the impression that we ourself are with Robbie Williams, and this is a rare thing to see in a music video, and is extremely low budget, and therefore cost effective, compared to the usual mix of shots by proffesional camera persons and directors, conventionally used for music videos.