Ed –
There are a couple of far less tedious ways to go on this, but both involve plugins. Either Knoll Light Factory Pro (now owned by Red Giant Software), or Video Copilot’s Optical Flares, will take an animated series of dots and attach lens flares to them.
Although I use an older version of Knoll Lens Flare, this feature worked quite well (I think the module was called Spectacular), but I don’t know if the new version still allows this.
I do know that Optical Flares will do it, and from what I’ve read on the Video Copilot site, the feature set seems to blow away Knoll Lens Flares (Light Factory Pro I don’t know). I plan to buy Optical Flares soon – there are just too many cool features to pass up. Good luck in your choice – you’ll save the price of the plugin with all that tracking and attaching you’d otherwise have to do.
Joe Bourke
Creative Director / Multimedia Specialist
B&S Exhibits and Multimedia
bs-exhibits.com