First example:
MAN: (rising to a very full height) Did you just call me an asshole?This is masterful scene design -- it is masterful because the screenwriter knows what to leave out. We don't see the fight, we don't see the man sit on Armand and bang his head on the pavement. We don't see it because this is a comedy and such a sight wouldn't be particularly funny. What is funny is the quick transition from the moment just before the fight starts to Albert's doctoring of the loser, his partner. Because we are given no literal picture of the beating, our imagination is free to see the humor rather than the brutality in the act -- and so this moment becomes quite funny. The key to its humor is the scene design, where one scene ends and the next begins.
ARMAND: No...actually, I was talking to the asshole behind you.
INT. ARMAND'S APARTMENT - DAY
Armand is lying on the couch. Albert is applying cold compresses to his head.
ALBERT: See? The swelling's already gone down. You were magnificent. Marvelous. Very masculine. I'm so proud of you. That big idiot looked so ridiculous when he sat on you and banged your head on the ground. He didn't even know how to box. [REF]
Scene design, of course, also contributes to the efficiency and pacing of a story. Here's another example from The Birdcage, when Armand decides to call Val's mother to see if she can help in the charade for the in-laws:
VAL: You really think she'd do it? Wow. My mother ...INT. KATHARINE ARCHER'S OFFICE
KATHARINE (on phone): Oh, my God! Armand! I don't believe it! It's been a hundred years. Where are you? [REF]
We don't have to go through the decision to call her, we don't even have to see Katharine answer the phone, "Hello?" The cut is directly from the realization that the mother is there and might possibly help to her responding to Armand's phone call. What is left out is as important as what is put in.
And that's a general principle behind good scene design: what is left out is as important as what is put in.