Transitions and Special Effects
By now, your edited video is starting to really take shape. If you are familiar with iMovie, you may know that it allows for a variety of transitions and effects within your movie. You are probably eager to try them all out.

Don’t.

Why am I discouraging such creative expression? Simple mathematics. You are creating a video that you intend to stream on the Web. In video streaming, software mathematically crunches the data making up your movie into something small enough to send on the Internet. A lot of that work involves looking for things that change in your video. The less change, the more the video can be compressed down to a smaller size that will play smoothly.

Streaming Your Story
Obviously, video is all about change and motion. That can’t be escaped. But there is no sense in putting unnecessary change into your video. Digital transitions and effects can create unnecessary change in your video. If you use them, the real subject of your video may get lost as the streaming software tries to sort out all that motion. Those bounce wipes may look cool but they really don’t add that much to well shot video. Always choose content over effects.

So avoid using a lot of digital transitions and effects. A good old-fashioned cut between scenes is easier for streaming software to handle. Once you are confident in your skills at producing streaming video, feel free to experiment. But be cautious when you are just starting out.

Good iMovie Effects
But not all effects in iMovie are bad. Some may actually help your streaming video. How can this be? Let me show you.

Suppose you shot some video with a hand-held camera. Suppose the person holding the camera is standing on a boat. That pretty much sums up some of my example footage of the Statue of Liberty. Everything is in constant motion. Streaming software does not like that kind of work. But the subject is so strong that I can use iMovie to feature the Statue of Liberty in all of its glory.

Use the slider in the Timeline Viewer to slow a clip and steady it for streaming.

With some footage, you might be able to slow down the clip. How does that help? Slow motion footage is not going to change as quickly. That is something the streaming software will like. So my shaky hand-held footage from a boat will not move quite so much as fast. This trick doesn’t work for everything but it is worth considering.

To make a clip run slower in iMovie, click the clock symbol in the Viewer window to switch to the Timeline Viewer. Now select a clip to slow down. At the bottom of the Timeline Viewer, you will find a slider that balances between "Faster" and "Slower." Slower is what you want. As you adjust the slider, your clip will lengthen in the Timeline Viewer.

Still Video?
What happens if you make a clip so slow that it stops? You have a still image. In some cases, a still image can replace a shaky moving one. If slow motion works with streaming, you will find streaming software has even better luck at dealing with a still image. To make a still image, choose a clip and position the Monitor window Playhead on the frame you want to make a still image of. Pull down the Edit menu and choose Create Still Clip. A still image will appear in the Shelf window. The still clip has a default length of 5 seconds. You can change that by choosing the clip and adjusting its duration in a window at the top of a Clip Viewer. Once you have the still image set for the right duration, drag it into the Viewer for use in your video.