I have made a demo time-lapse movie for a friend. The QuickTime movie is way too large to be sent via email even after compressing it in a zip package. I have been using the online storage QDrive (http://www.qdrive.net/) for such a distribution, but the service is unreliable and goes down often.

Could I use iCloud for this purpose? It appears that Apple restricts its use to store stuff that you purchase through the App Store and iTunes store, and not other stuff.

Short answer is no iCloud isn't designed for file sharing. I use Dropbox for this, but other options are google gdrive, and Microsoft skydive. For icloud if you know your way around a mac I think there is a hidden folder you can place user files in to sync them, but this isn't really any option for sharing with others... More for sharing you own stuff to you other computers.

Dropbox works well if your files are under the basic 2GB limit, but there's always the Macs File Sharing option, and also large file transfers available with Skype and iChat if you both have accounts setup.

File Sharing - Send Files - Skype (http://www.skype.com/intl/en-us/features/allfeatures/send-files/)
Mac 101: iChat (http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2515)
Nine ways to transfer files from one Mac to another | Macworld (http://www.macworld.com/article/1158185/filetransfer.html)

Box.net offers 5GB and is basically the same thing as Dropbox. I've heard of some services that offer up to 50GB, but they probably won't be around in a year so who cares.

I use Dropbox as well. Works really well with all my devices which is key.