How to set a screen resolution other than what is displayed in the scaled list? I need to set my screen resolution 1280x720 (this is a requirement for a screencast I need to create).  When I go into the Display - Scaled menu this is no longer available as an option on Yosemite, even though it was available on previous versions of the OS on the same laptop.

Is there a way in Yosemite to access or force different screen resolutions for this?
You can install John Ford's screenresolution utility via brew install screenresolution. Alternatively you can download and compile the source here.
Once the utility is installed you can see all available resolutions via screenresolution list. Assuming the appropriate resolution is listed you can set your display with something like screenresolution set 1280x720x32.