Matte Boxes

[Korhan20]

I am unsure as to what matte boxes are used for while shooting dv. I know they were used for film to have some effect on the negative or something, but i am ignorant in this subject and i would like to learn. Will someone one please clear up its uses and if it is really needed while shooting a film on dv. Thank you

[Kevin Zanit]

A Matte box does absolutely nothing to the negative (or video signal).

 

It is used to hold square filters in front of the lens, and shade light off of the lens.

 

The only real difference in between a matte box used in film and one in video is a video one is generally smaller.

 

 

Kevin Zanit

[Michael Nash]

I know they were used for film to have some effect on the negative or something

You may be thinking of "hard mattes", or elements placed in the gate to mask the image at the negative to a certain aspect ratio. In practice these are hardly ever used because it eliminates the posibility of repositioning or resizing the image in post.

 

Not to be confused with matte boxes, which Kevin described. In addition to holding filters, matte boxes can also support mattes on the front to keep ambient light off the filters. These are kind of like rectangular plastic lens caps that snap onto the front of the box, with a rectangular hole cut in the center sized for different focal lengths. This comes in handy for things like diffusion filters where you might want only elements in the frame to glow, without the whole image becoming washed out from stray light hitting the filter.