I actually think there's some good wisdom to the one-piece-at-a-time mentality. Why do you have to learn how to do everything at once? For lighting, you might want to consider slowly building, over time, an extensive DIY light-kit. Just as an example, on of many cinematographer's favorite tools can be purchased on the cheap, at IKEA (China balls). And if you want to saturate the crap out of your set, $20 construction lights will do that (it won't look like nice cinematography, but at least you'll be able to see everything).
Oh, and one thing we always seem to forget to talk about, when somebody is considering DSLR -- do you have a good computer? This footage is very demanding.