How To: Use FCPX to create iPhone Portrait Movies (and other non-standard formats)

Question

Goal: Use Final Cut Pro X 10.0.7 to produce a 640x1136 video (iPhone 5 Portrait). You can use these same steps to produce virtually any dimensions you want. My example is for the iPhone 5, in Portrait mode.
This information is available in various places, but you have to realy work to find it, so I thought I'd post a step-by-step guide here.
By the way, you might think you could just create a FCPX Project with your desired dimensions, but you can't (at least with 10.0.7). Projects only support certainly dimensions. But there are other ways, as the rest of this post describes:
1) Create an initial movie with the desired dimensions, to serve as a template. We'll call it "Template.mov". The only thing that matters is the dimensions. It can be in any codec FCPX understands, and virtually any length.
I'm using a 2 second video shot on my iPhone for the template. You could also create a blank image (.png, whatever) with the proper dimensions, copy and paste it into a new Quick Time Pro 7 window, and Export it using custom settings. There's lots of different ways to do this.
2) Drop Template.mov into a FCPX event.
3) Select Template.mov in the Event browser, and select File->Duplicate (or command-D). You probably could just edit "Template.mov", but it's a good idea to save it for reuse.
3) Change the name of the copied video. I'm using "iPhone Video".
4) Right-click "iPhone Video" and select "Open in Timeline".
5) If you made the Template video from a still image, you may need to change the duration (ctrl+D). You don't have to make it very long, but it needs to be longer than 1 frame. A few seconds should be enough.
6) Use this timeline like you'd use a project's timeline. Drop in new content, trim, transition, etc. There may be things you can't do in it, but I haven't found any yet. I'm guessing Chapters may not work, but I haven't tried them.
7) Note that when you drop new content into the timeline, it may size funny. That's because the default setting for "Spacial Conform" is "Fit". Simply select the newly-dropped content, and in the Video settings inspector, scroll down to "Spacial Conform" and change it. You could use "Fill", which fills the frame vertically, or "None", which uses the source's original height. Then crop/transform/whatever to get what you want.
8) When you're ready to render, select "iPhone Video" in the Event browser, then use the "Share" button. You want to use the "Export File" destination, which you may have to add. Pick your codec, and let 'er rip.
9) When the rendering is done, you should have a video in your desired dimensions.
That's all there is to it. Hope this helps someone.
Dan
PS: Don't ask why someone would want to create an iPod video using FCPX. The point is that you may need to create a video with non-standard  dimensions at some point in time, and this is how to do it.
PPS: Most of this information came from http://library.creativecow.net/articles/payton_t/FCPX_Custom-Resolution-Timeline s/video-tutorial. I just wrote it down, while I tried to do what the video suggested.

Answer 1

Instructions for using QuickTime Pro 7 to create a template video with unusual dimensions.
I suspect that anyone savy enough to be using FCPX has probably already figured out how to do this, either using my technique or another, so there probably isn't a real need for me to post this. For that matter, I may be the only person who cares about this at all. However, while I was trying to learn how to do all of this, I would have really appreciated having all the information in one place, so here goes.
If you want to create a video with unusual dimensions (like 640x1136) using my steps above, you'll need a "template" video first. Here's an easy way to create one, using any image editor, and QuickTime Pro 7.
1) Open QuickTime Pro 7 (QTP for short).
2) From the menu, select File->New Player. You'll get a window with just the bottom portion of the player, i.e. the playback controls.
3) Using an image editor, create a still image in the desired dimensions. You can use any image editor. It doesn't matter what the image contains (although it will end up showing as a thumbnail in FCPX).
4) Copy the image to the clipboard.
5) Switch back to QTP, and paste the image into the new player. Don't worry that there isn't a video window showing - just paste it into the window that has only playback controls. As soon as you do, the video window appears.
6) Advance to the end of the movie (the short, 1-frame movie), then hold down Command+V (paste) and keep holding it down to paste multiple images in. Watch the time advance. You could, if you want, just hold down Command+V until you get the length you want. But if you want a long video, there's an easier way:
7) When you reach a few seconds (or whatever duration your patience allows), select all (Command+A) and copy (Command+C). Then hold down Command+V to keep pasting in the longer clips. Wait until you reach a longer duration, then repeat the process. So, for example, 1 second, then 10 seconds, then 1 minute, then 10 minutes, then 1 hour. Or whatever you want.
8) Save the video however you want. I usually use File->Export with H.264, with Quality set to "Least". Just make sure you don't let it change the dimensions. If you resized the player window, depending on which "save" or "export" method you've chosen, it might default to the resized dimensions, so double check that to make sure.
That's it. You now have a template video you can use with my previous post(s).
Dan