There aren't many custom firmwares available. Generally people use an external "intervalometer" or "shot timer". Most SLRs have external control ports to allow for remote triggering. Newer cameras are starting to include basic intervalometers, which is nice.
As for RAW, like Martin said, the original source of the "film" is a bunch of individual still shots shot in the camera's RAW format. When you edit it together you can do so in a 16bit color space (or higher) video editor like Adobe After Effects and then adjust color more capably, apply HDR effects, etc. to the video, or even apply HDR processing a batch process to the original RAW files before assembling into a video.
- Oshyan
