Creating a typographic animation

Hello AV-pros,

I'm an interaction design student from the Netherlands. As part of my study, I'm supposed to do a free choice assignment, prefferably outside my normal area of expertise.

I chose to make a typographic animation to my favorite heavy metal song. I've animated the 6 minutes of lyrics in Premiere. For the remaining 4 minutes I tried making a sort of visualizer in After Effects. I used a tutorial from videocopilot.com for this.

After showing the work to a AV teacher, he told me he liked some parts (the parts that were typographically creative) but critisised that some parts were too much 'karaoke' and the visualizer was just too measly compared to the music. Also the visualizer didnt realy move along with either the drums or the guitar pitch.

The animation actually did cost me way more work than I had expected. Now I dont mind doing some work now and then, but my deadline for the entitre semester is in 3 weeks, and I have some other things to do as well :P

So my questions are as follows:
- Is there some kind of plugin/technique for premiere that allows for easy text effects?
- Is there an effect for creating blazing flames?
- How do I make a visualisation to the music that is both robust and is capable of moving to metal music?
- Any other advice for making a typographic animation?

Many thanks,
Siem