LionheartM are you still making your movie? You didnt say how big you want your movie to be. There is a vast differance in render speed  between making it 300 x 300 pixels and 3000 x 3000. Pick a fairly small size that you can live with.   I understand that the movie takes place in a dimley lit room. Pay attention to your shadow settings. If your characters are dancing or spinning around in the room you may have shadows moving around in unpredictable and annoying ways. Are your characters throwing hard shadows onto a wall or floor? experiement with different shadow values and strengths. 3 minutes is a LOT of render time. 3 minutes at 30 frames per second is 5,400 frames! How much render time can you afford per frame?Some animators change this to 24 frames per second with no noticable loss. But if you started with 30 fps you will have to stay with it. If I may suggest, experiement  with small sections of your movie and see how it looks. Pick difficult sections with a lot of action and see what you get. I have been fooled many times by thinking that my motion looked very "Real" in my preview reneder. Only to find that it wasnt the  same when I increased to final render settings.  Say frame 50 -100 .   Then 200-250 ect. And see how your textures look and how the shadows look.  Experienment with a small number of frames for each of your different camara shots look. Animation and rendering is very time consuming be sure that it will look how you thought it would. I would suggest using maybe only 2 lights a direct overhead and maybe a spot front right and maybe a direct front left low values. And be carefull how the shadows from these lights interact with each other when your characters move or your camara moves. I would avoid Global illumination or ambient occlusion. unless you are sure how it will look and render and you have extra render time.    GOOD LUCK! and please post your movie for us to see.