Thank you so much for the in-depth analysis! I didn't quite get what you meant by rigid body simulation, so i researched a bit and realized that putting Blender into "Blender Game" (as opposed to "Blender Render") was what I should have done in the first place haha. I'm still extremely new to animating and I've decided to scale down the enormity of my first test, but now that I know about Blender Game animation renders and baking I think I'll be off to a great start.

Thanks again for your help!