What to do about bright spots before color correcting

I have a video of the Lion King show from the Animal Kingdom at Disney World. I shot it on HDV using a tripod, although I occasionally zoomed or panned the camera. This is not an important project, just one I would like to finally get done seeing as how I have had the footage since 2006. Procrastination is a bit of a problem for me as you might infer from that. The export might be my first Blu-Ray export, but more likely it will just end up on Vimeo.
The problem with spotlights is probably familiar to many of you so I thought I would ask for some advice before I even begin. My initial thought was to use a gradient matte over the top 1/3 or 1/2 of the frame at times to dim the spotlights before using an adustment layer to color correct each section. A vignette so to speak that would help focus attention on stage. Or, perhaps a large collection of little circular gradient mattes over each of the brighter spotlights (using AE)
I am not planning on zooming in to the video in Premiere Pro. The shots are the shots and they are staying that way as far as I can tell, unless something really screams for that and I can get away with it. There are quite a few changes in lighting. I attached three examples of what I will be dealing with.
What I would really like to know is how other people would go about this. I haven't researched Speedgrade yet, mainly because I think I might be able to handle this in Premiere Pro and After Effects. Although it may be the perfect opportunity to learn Speedgrade. I have a subscription to the Creative Cloud, so any Adobe product is fair game. I am not planning on buying any third party tools. This is just a hobby project, and I can not justify any additional expense for it.
I don't want to over do the correction. The yellow and blue tints are really there, but I would like to reduce the tint so that just the hint of yellow or blue is visible. I have a feeling that I am going to have to spend some time adjusting curves to deal with some of the dimmer lighting like the last image. Or, is there a set of magic parameters I can change to keep this simple and get close to my goal without a huge effort.
There will be no cutting other than what might be needed at points where colors change dramatically. I would really like to see everything keyframed so all changes are smooth if that makes sense technically. The video is 00;31;31;02 in duration. This is going to be a pretty big project for having zero cuts. The longest I have ever done without a cut as far as I can remember.
Here are three sample frames. Any and all suggestions are welcome. How would you start?

Oh, I know about the Disney issues. I just like to use my Roku to watch HD videos from Vimeo on my HDTV. It depends on the footage. If it has to be pristine, then Vimeo might not be the best choice, but for most of my footage, it is good enough. Most of the people I show my vacation videos to are friends and family so I just keep the video private and nobody bothers me about it. So far at least

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rowby wrote:
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Shooternz, your help in the cs5 thread was great...and this is what I did....in my particular circumstances...
( I have to say that this is really the first time I'm sorta getting serious about CC and using the scopes etc...to try to learn this better )
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WAYY BETTER ! ( thank you ! )....but...not perfect...thats OK, I didnt light it right...but better ....
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Message was edited by: DVX100Shooter

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Hi
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