Creating an animated gif of a movie segment

The Horror of creating an animated gif

Forgive me. This animated gif is 14MB. It is 3 seconds of 720p. Flickr gave me the finger when I tried to upload it so I just uploaded it here. The original one on my computer is 1080p.

I needed this reference gif for building a replica of it in UDK. It needed to be an animated gif instead of just a movie so there would be no pause between looping and I could run it in a browser.

Creating this 3 second animated gif was a total pain in the ass.

If you want a gif of a movie snippet here are the steps. This should work with any movie format :)

You will need to own photoshop CS4 or above. Sorry if you don't have it.

Part One: trimming the file
program : avidemux
> download, install and open it
> open your file
> play to the point you want to start your cut. Press the red A button to the right of the controls
> play to the point where you want to stop your cut. Press the red/white B button to the right of the A button
> NOTE: you can fine tune your position with the arrow buttons
> click the 'save icon'

Part Two: converting the file to work with photoshop CS4+
program: NCH Prism
> download, install and open it (avoid its browser toolbar install option)
> add your trimmed file
> pick output format of .mov
> click convert

Part Three: creating the animated gif
program: Photoshop CS4+
> NOTE: you will need quicktime 7.1+ installed. download it here if you don't have it
> NOTE #2: you need to run the 32 bit version of photoshop to get the menu item we need
> select file : import "video frames to layers"
> click on ok once it shows up and you will now have layers for your video.
> select the animation window if it isn't visible
> press play in the bottom left corner to make sure it looks good
> NOTE: I had to delete a blank/white frame from the animation
> select file : "save for web & devices"
> click save

voila you now have an animated gif of your movie snippet.

Update:
A recommended alternative is gifcam. I tried it and it worked very well.