I have an image of a dark dashboard but you can see the LED lights for the controls - is there a way that I can get the lights to brighten and then dim - as if a car is being started?

keyframe in a brightness adjustment, or keyframe a highlights reduction. chug chug chug.
dont ask me how on that software, but i would guess section out the clip you want to do that to,, add a simple "effects" to that clip being "color adj.", or "bright/cont" , then bring up the effects pannel and layout keyframing down it. match it to the sounds, and dont overdo it.

that is all i can tell you till somone who uses the software more comes along.
the key would be keyframing it carefully.

Easy.

Copy the Track to Track 1.

On the Track 1 Event (the copy) carefully Bezier mask (in Pan/Crop) all the Lights and apply any saturation/Gain/Gamma whatever to the event and have these brighteners come in on keyframes.

I did this same thing for a factory lift start and stop. Nice!

Grazie

Ok, I was hoping I could use something like "Difference" blend to get the effect or a video FX. It would be great if I could just brighten the lights - everthing else is dark. I know I could roto it out, but I was hoping for an easier way around it...

if you have After Effects it is a breeze.
Create a Luma matt and away you go.
In Vegas it will be much more work.

O . . K . . .

Apply a 2nd Colour Corrector; select the range for one light and BOOST the Gamma/Sat/Gain for that one "light" colour; add another 2nd Colour Corrector for the next "light" colour and so on. As long as the Lights are fairly, distinctly different to the surroundings that should be effective. Just done it with some race cars, looks good. If it works for you then it is dead easy.

Yeah, forget the Roto stuff.

Grazie

this is fun. Ive been playing around with this, may have something. I looked at it from how After Effects would do it, but in Vegas.
Duplicate your track, work on the top layer.
Use col corrector and Brightness and contrast to make a matt, just black and white, as little grey as you can do.
Now apply chroma key to the top matt track, remove the black.
You now have complete control over your lights only, on the top track.
You could make them glow, brighten, even light rays may look good.
I love learning something new. :)