First, there's no way to edit & export animation simply by using VFB (in comparison to Maxwell's Multilight app - feature req.;). For that you need a compositing app.
Then, for rendering, since there's basically no secondary light (GI) effect observed, just set "GI mode" to either "Single bounce" or "None (direct only)". This way you'll have less error prone & faster rendering.
So I think it would be best, if you simply do your homework. Find out what's your fastest way to animate & render simple, short sequence. Are you faster controlling light sequence with Max and just rendering or generating passes and then composing the sequence?