This is most evident in the final lottery scene. The scene begins with quick cuts of school administrators and teachers preparing gyms and lecture halls to break the inevitable news. Lottery wheels are loaded with numbers, papers with student names are cut up and put into bins, and computers begin to generate names. Families and their children file into rows of seats and sit anxiously for the drawing to begin. The fast pace and quick cuts helps maintain the audience's attention by having a constantly changing screen, and it also allows the audience to see each student's expression in a short amount of time. The entire scene itself helps to recreate the sense of anxiety and tension that the children and their families are going through. The pace begins to slow as the teachers begin to read off names and numbers that were accepted into the school. Cheers ring out across the room but so does the deafening silence of families still clenching on to the last bit of hope that their son or daughter's name will be called. Finally at the conclusion of the drawing, the realization sets in, no more spots are available. The camera lingers on the faces of the children not accepted and the audience can’t help but feel sympathetic towards them. One child even says, “They didn’t say me.”, further strengthening the emotional connection between the audience …show more content…
Our public education system is in dire need of adequate teachers and a strong, centralized method of teaching. It’s because of these very reasons, director Davis Guggenheim criticizes the United States public education system. In his documentary Waiting for Superman, he utilizes animations supported with statistics, and connects to the audience’s emotions by using pacing to reinforce his belief that the educational system is in need of