Practical Screencraft 2: Why would an editor care about Lighting and Composition?

So as I'm going to be examining the scene from "Night of the Hunter" for my film one, my tutor has insisted that I also examine this scene from a specialist subject matter. So I have chosen to look at this clip from the perspective of an editor, but this opens up a new question; as an editor, why would I need to know about Lighting and composition?

If I had chosen another clip I could talk about After Effects as well, considering that my specialism is editing this would have fit quite nicely as a lot of editors today are expected to have at least some knowledge of after effects. However, the Night of the Hunter was filmed in 1955so is the only post work would have been done on the film itself, if any was done at all. So there isn't really any room to talk about that subject matter.

There is a little room to talk about the choreography, but the issue is with that is most of the characters are very still during the scene. There is not a lot of movement from the actors because their meant to be still in order to build a sense of tension, and while I can bring this up, there isn't much else to talk about.

There is plenty to talk about lighting and composition though, so the key here is to bring up relevant examples. I have chosen three specific shots to make my points. The image of the killer waiting outside the house, the side shot of the old woman waiting by the window and another shot of her by front facing. The reason for this selection is they are all excellent examples of what I need to talk about.

They are all great examples of shading and lighting and composition because how they all add to the scene. The lighting tells a story of an evil killer and stalwart protector facing off on this farm, and the composition helps to create an atmosphere that the audience cant tear its eyes from with its use of camera angles and how it incorporates the third dimension.

Now as an editor, the relevancy to these practices are quite high, and this is ignoring the obvious fact that I wouldn't have any footage to work with if this stuff hadn't been filmed by the rest of the team. When it comes to lighting for example, the better I understand how it creates an illusion of a place being set at night or how it can define a character without them speaking a single line of dialogue, the better I can spot inaccuracies or faults during the edit. Say an image was overexposed, and the image was far too bright for where the place was set, I can identify this in the edit and lower the brightness of the image, or I can confirm with the director wether the shot is lit as intended.

For composition, the perfect starting point is the positioning of the shot, but if the director is working with the edit with me and they decided he wants the image to be brought in closer. The more I know about composing a shot, the easier it will be for me to identify with exactly with what they want. It creates a more efficient process of editing as well, and the director can entrust with simple note of changes if he had something else to do.

These are just some examples I can use in my film one. Essentially though, the editor is the one who puts the puzzle together, but the director, producer, cinematographer, lighter, sound operator and everyone else are the ones who provide the pieces.