LONDON — The world was focused on the news that Kate, Princess of Wales, had completed chemotherapy, but the video that shared the news was anything but a typical message from the royal family.

And now the video itself has made headlines, with royal watchers wondering what the sepia-toned production says about the austere institution and whether the emotional content signals a new approach for a family that has long struggled to balance its strong need for privacy with public demands for transparency.

Kate, 42, announced on Monday that she had completed her treatment and was moving forward with her return to the public eye. But instead of a traditional text statement or a stripped-down on-camera post like the video announcing her cancer diagnosis, the news was shared in a three-minute video that broke with royal tradition.

It shows images of Kate, Prince William and their three children George, Charlotte and Louis having a family picnic in the woods and playing on the beach – and hugging and laughing in the style of a home video. There is also soft music, cinematic camera angles, slow motion effects and Kate’s voiceover describing her cancer.

There are also shots of Kate resting her head on William’s shoulder and the couple hugging and kissing – a level of intimacy the royals rarely show in public.

And some royal observers were stunned.

“In more than a decade of covering the royal family, I have never seen a video like this,” said NBC News royal reporter Emily Nash.

“We have never seen the Welsh family so intimate,” she added. “And what really stood out were the public displays of affection, which William and Kate are not particularly known for.”

This intimacy may have been carefully planned, if not choreographed, royal historian Sarah Gristwood told NBC News. “But that is not the direction the royal family has taken so far,” Gristwood said.

Although the royal family has always tried to portray itself as champions of family values, it has not quite been done that way, she said. “The stylistic choices – it is a bit of a shock to see that from this source in this country.”

During the reign of the late Queen Elizabeth II, the public saw images of her family that were very carefully posed and formal, Gristwood said. A famous and controversial documentary broadcast in 1969 attempted to show an intimate portrait of the daily life of the royal family, but lacked overt displays of affection.

“Now, barely more than half a century later, that is a million miles away,” Gristwood said.

And although King Charles has opted for a more open and informal style of communication since ascending to the throne, the video released by Kate and William, the future king and queen, is “a huge leap into a new media age,” she added.

Kate and William have been fiercely protective of their privacy, which critics say led to widespread speculation about Kate’s well-being earlier this year. The saga sparked rare criticism of the royals, who have long faced calls for accountability despite their public presence and millions of taxpayers’ money.

Now Kate and William seem to have accepted what they had previously complained about.

“They didn’t want to leave anything to chance this time,” Nash said.

“I think that given the difficulties of the past year, William and Kate understood that they needed to control the narrative to some extent,” she added. “This was a really classy and beautiful way of doing that.”

But not everyone agreed.

Marine Hyde, a columnist for the British newspaper The Guardian, asked: “Who could be less sad that a mother recovering from chemotherapy feels that this is her best chance of keeping ‘well-wishers’ at bay for a little while longer?”

It also remains to be seen whether the public will embrace this new approach, Gristwood said.

“The British are, of course, traditionally a little cautious about open displays of emotion and anything that is almost too professional, if you will, too perfectly styled,” she said. But that might be different, she said, for the video’s likely target audience: “The younger half of Prince William’s future subjects, who are less committed to the royal family at the moment than their elders.”