If it were me, I would make the cut a little bit lower than the red mark, and most definitely not as low as the blue mark. Perhaps about halfway between both lines? Or a little bit higher than that? The dormant buds are located at each node, where the leaves are attached to the stem. Wherever you do decide to prune it, make the cut at an angle about half an inch above one of those leaves. I would also wait until your plants begins to show signs of growing first, before pruning it back. The energy that would've been used for that new growth will then be redirected towards those dormant buds instead. Give your plants as much light as possible until then, to help it build up the energy needed to put out new growth. Looking a little bit closer at both plants, thinking about where I would make the cuts, I would probably only cut off the 1st leaf on the first plant. Right above the next leaf, leaving a total of four leaves left. And as for the second plant, I'd cut off the top three, leaving a total of five leaves. That's just a suggestion, how I would go about it. Whatever you do decide, at least wait until when it just begins to start putting out new growth again, before making the cuts. To maximize your plants' growth potential. If you prune it before then, your plants will still recover, but they won't have nearly as much stored up energy to put into any new growth. That's what I do for any plant of mine, and it works everytime. This post was edited by ToMMyBoY69 on Sat, Mar 29, 14 at 4:18

Pruning is probably not your best option for a Ficus elastica. Perhaps you could visit the House Plant Forum with this question. I am going to guess that it will be suggested that you do whatever you can to remove the scale by hand (soft cloth with some rubbing alcohol), and then continue with a spray regime of rubbing alcohol/water to kill crawlers. Horticultural oil can also be a great help to smother crawlers and eggs. If the infestation is a severe one, sometimes the best policy is to put the plant out on the curb for trash pick up. Scale insects are notoriously difficult to control on indoor plants. And be careful that other house plants don't become infested.

Dave is right, in that it's not getting nearly enough light. I don't know where you live, so I can't comment on the timing of an aggressive pruning session, but there is definitely one of those in your planting's future if it's ever going to be under your control. At some point, you'll need to take a set of loppers and use them to do a reboot. When you do, you can cut the worst offenders off half-way between where the stem exits the soil and half way to an imaginary line that is vertical to the rim of the pot. Yes, that means some short stubs. As the plant comes back online, you can remove buds or branches in awkward places and keep those in places that probe to enhance the appearance of the planting. Also, if you're not going to give it more light, you'll need to start instituting a series of chops. A 'chop' is a significant shortening of the stem. In this case, it's purpose would be to limit deflection (bending) of overly long stems that are too thin to support ther own weight, because of low light conditions ....... which brings us full circle to my opening comment. Al

I'd attribute the small leaves to genetic variation, or more likely, to the plant being rootbound. That foliage is sort of arranged in clusters near branch apices (tip of branch where extension occurs) is also a symptom of a congested root system. If you asked me to prune your plant, I'd first mention the fact that I would be taking it back to a basic shape you can build on, and, it's likely that 80% (or so) of the plant's living mass is going to end up on the floor/ground when I was done. If pruning isn't something you would consider to be one of your strengths, you could always prune off everything outside of an imaginary vertical wall extending straight up from the rim of the pot. Once done, you can look at the branch structure and correct problem branches. I think you'd be pleases with the results insofar as appearance is concerned, but your plant is probably in serious need of a full repot and a good nutritional supplementation program. Al