Shooting a Christmas light show video with a Canon 60D, brightness overpowering

You dont need special lenses or filters. Filters will probably result in worse lenses flares.

Take the camera off auto exposure and focus. Put it on a tripod. And use the back of the lcd to get the exposure you want. Obviously you want a little but of a happy medium so that you can see the lights but that you can also see the surrounding area. So it is perfectly ok, because the lights vary in brightness throughout the show if the exposure on parts goes over briefly. If you need a more detailed explanation let me know. I posted this from my phone

your shutter speed should be always at 1/60 anyway. if you are shooting 1080p 30 fps or 24fps, then you should lock your shutter speed at 60 and adjust ISO and aperture to get your proper exposure. that will ensure the most natural looking movement in your video.

now if you are shooting in PAL mode and not NTSC, then you will set your shutter speed to 1/50

i would not use AWB because if you are shooting at night and shooting Christmas lights that are lots of different colors then you will not get the most natural colors. i would suggest setting your white balance to tungsten so that you are balanced for the lights themselves, assuming they are traditional lights and not something new or different like LED christmas lights. if you know what type of christmas lights they are then you can set a custom WB which is much more ideal as you can set it to what the lights actually are. you will usually not see any issue with light flicker unless you point your camera at an old computer CRT monitor or old fluorescent lights that have magnetic ballasts instead of a newer electronic ballast.

if you are shooting this at night from say the street to fit an entire house in the shot i doubt you will be able to get away with ISO 100 comfortably. dont be afraid to go higher iso, the 60D can handle over 100

i would suggest try starting at iso 320 that way you dont end up shooting with a wide aperture. for something like this you are going to want to be stopped down to get a nice clean focus throughout the frame primarily at the middle distance and background.

for reference the best ISO settings to use on your 60D in video mode are: 160, 320, 640, or 1250/1600. going past 1000 isnt ideal for everyone but honestly the noise is not that bad. i would rather have digital noise in my shot than an image that is not properly exposed and lost detail because of the lower latitude that the camera has to offer.