A scene is written in a master shot, or specific shots. A master shot covers a general area: a room, a street, a lobby. A specific shot focuses on a specific part of the room—a door, say, or in front of a specific store on a specific street. The scenes from American Beauty are mostly presented in master shot. The script Cold Mountain utilizes both specific shots and master shots. If you want to write a dialogue scene in master shot, all you need to write is INT. RESTAURANT— NIGHT, and simply let your characters speak without any reference to the camera or shot.

You can be as general or specific as you want. A scene can be one shot (a car racing down the street) or a series of shots (a couple arguing on a street corner in front of a few bystanders).

A shot is what the camera sees.