Here you can find some fast tools for creating own movie from image frames.

Useful scripts for converting/adding label or logo/montage images to movie:
convert_ppm2jpg.sh As an input we have 3 images: im1, im2, im3
montage.sh result is here: mont.jpg
add_label.sh After adding label: mont.jpg
msmpeg4v2.sh, mpeg2.sh , mpeg4.sh different format of movie you can download from: Galaxy Merger Simulation GALLERY
resize_avi.sh If you need you can resize movie.
Note: For optimal bitrate you can use - optimal_bitrate = 50 * 25 * width * height / 256

For more editing tricks you can have a look at:
julian.coccia.com

Cropping videos with mencoder:
You can use the -ss and -endpos parameters to specify start and end point, but you have to add some keyframes to the video first if you look for precision. Also, I needed to specify the fps, otherwise the wmv looked weird.

mencoder -oac copy -ovc lavc -lavcopts keyint=5 -ofps 24 video1.wmv -o video2.avi

Now you can crop video2.avi. For example will skip the first 3.2 seconds and will take 2 seconds of video (until second 5.5)

mencoder -ss 3.2 -endpos 2 -oac copy -ovc copy video2.avi -o video1.avi

The resulting video1.avi has already been cropped. Repeat the procedure with all the pieces of video you need to merge. Rename all videos numerically, for example take01.avi take02.avi, etc,

Merging videos with mencoder:
cat *avi | mencoder -oac copy -ovc copy -o myvideo.avi -

This would simply concatenate all avi files in the current directory into a new video called myvideo.avi, maintaining the original audio and video codecs.

If you want this video to be viewable in a windoze machine (this part is not easy), then use the following codecs:
cat *avi | mencoder -oac pcm -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=msmpeg4 -o myvideo.avi -