Funny you should suggest that. That was my original idea. However, I could not find any software that would allow for smooth word balloons. Basically, the closest I could find allowed me to manually draw a word balloon, but I would have to re-draw it again for each frame. So, for just three seconds of dialogue at 15 fps, I'd need to draw it 45 times and even the slightest differentiation from frame to frame would be picked up. Either that, or I could freeze the entire frame (including the speaking minifigure) while the thought balloon was on screen. Neither alternative seemed ideal to me.
I went back on forth with several different styles, sizes and locations of subtitles. The one I settled on seemed to work best for me initially, but I am close to the project and know the script, I am probably not the best judge -- I can recite the lines in my sleep, so it's hard for me to say if someone else would "get" what is being said :) I appreciate your feedback!
I did another video in the meantime just to be shared with local friends to promote an upcoming event of ours. (I would share it more widely, but it uses some copyrighted music.) In that video, I did voiceovers for all of the characters, male and female. I am hardly an expert, particularly for the female characters, but it got me over my initial "I can't use my own voice" fears :)
Thank you, burlough! I am still relatively new to being a LEGO fan, so I did not realize this was considered an awful set :) I personally kinda like it, but most of my stuff so far has been Super Hero sets (which are fun, but not always the most creative build experiences because of the specialized parts) and larger Creator 3-in-1 houses. I have stockpiled several other sets, though, that I hope to get to soon!