A master shot (or short master) is a film recording of an entire dramatized scene, start to finish, from a camera angle that keeps all the players in view.
It is the foundation of what is called camera coverage, other shots that reveal different aspects of the action, groupings of two or three of the actors at crucial moments, close-ups of individuals, insert shots of various props, and so on.
This is one reason that some of the films from the 1930s and the 1940s are considered "stagey" by today's standards.
By the 1960s and the 1970s, the style of film shooting and editing shifted to include radical angles that conveyed more subjectivity and intimacy within the scenes.
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