Animated Lightning

My original scene has a large tesla coil within it pointing down to the main feature 'The operating table'.  I wanted the tesla coil to have lightning coming out of it but I also wanted it animated too. To do this I used the lightning paint effect. I created a single lightning strike then then duplicated this single strike into many. I then had to transform the paint effect into a mesh, so I could then manipulate the object. Once this was done I grouped the lightning together and key framed the 'Seed' of the group. Doing this allows that single lightning strike to change form in each frame, giving the illusion of animated lightning.

This is a shot of the lightning.