I have certainly used talking heads moments in my vids before -- complete with talky-face! Even intentionally! I do think the ability to get away with/not get away with shots like that depends on a few factors, like who your target audience is, how prominent the character/relationship you're vidding is in the fandom (see my example below, where a context-dependent shot would work for Spike-Buffy but not for Xander-Anya), and last but especially not least, how cool the camerawork is on your show. Like, Farscape has plenty of talking-head stuff that is not boring, because of the patented Farscape Nauseacam, not to mention its wacky lighting and color palette, etc.
But in general, I agree, it's better to get away from anything that depends on dialogue. For some shows, that's a lot harder than others. SV is *ass* when it comes to this -- you've either got people standing around talking (shot, two-shot, over-the-shoulder-shot, reverse-shot, OMG-I-am-so-bored-shot), or you've got wacktastic special effects. There's very little in between. Whereas with something like Firefly or, as I said, FS, there's more of a chance of finding good external and internal movement in any given clip.
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I have certainly used talking heads moments in my vids before -- complete with talky-face! Even intentionally! I do think the ability to get away with/not get away with shots like that depends on a few factors, like who your target audience is, how prominent the character/relationship you're vidding is in the fandom (see my example below, where a context-dependent shot would work for Spike-Buffy but not for Xander-Anya), and last but especially not least, how cool the camerawork is on your show. Like, Farscape has plenty of talking-head stuff that is not boring, because of the patented Farscape Nauseacam, not to mention its wacky lighting and color palette, etc.
But in general, I agree, it's better to get away from anything that depends on dialogue. For some shows, that's a lot harder than others. SV is *ass* when it comes to this -- you've either got people standing around talking (shot, two-shot, over-the-shoulder-shot, reverse-shot, OMG-I-am-so-bored-shot), or you've got wacktastic special effects. There's very little in between. Whereas with something like Firefly or, as I said, FS, there's more of a chance of finding good external and internal movement in any given clip.