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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Matte Box Woes

Well, the shade is removable but can it be removed without taking the screws out? I haven't seen it in person. Looking forward to Brooks mattebox video series part II.
 
If by sun shade you are talking about the plastic matte box rectangular shade In over 15 years of doing film production work I can only think of 4 times I had to remove it so 8 -10 decent sized (not super tiny) allen key bolts would be more then fine and would save you a bunch of design time and keep costs down. It is a very abnormal thing to have to take off the sun shade (unfortunately most ARRI production MB's have the sun shade put on with what seems like 100 tiny tiny bolts and I think in the 4 times I took off the shade I lost at least 1 bolt no matter how careful I was.). The quick release sun shade is definately something you can save money on by simply attaching it with bolts.

I do not think you mean eyebrow and siders when you say sun shade as these definately have to be detachable.
 
Well then in that case do not worry about making it quick release. 3 allen key bolts along the top and bottom and 2 on each side would be lots good enough. A design like this would be very fast to remove. A good design is if the bolts would stay attatched through the hole on the shade after it is off (not able to screw the bolts right out of the shade). This would be good because then you would not lose them when you pull it off.
 
Ok, here's the new video. As I said in the video, I've never really had to remove the hood, but I do like how easily the MB20's comes off. If it adds engineering complexity and price... well... Finner's suggestion is certainly good enough.

The whole "hinged eyebrow mounting points to allow for a wider hood" that I mention at the end... it's pretty stupid and would require more engineering complexity than is necessary, so there isn't really a benefit to it. I can think of a dozen reasons why it wouldn't work... and it may not even have any benefit at all [considering all the other parts of the MB that would get in the way of a wide image before the shade itself...]. As you can tell, I came up with the thought while I was making the video.

One of the nicest things about the mattebox is that every screw is captive... nothing comes off. Ever. I love that.
 
My goodness. Over 4000 $ for a mattebox. And if you go through the catalogue of Arri there are 4 or 5 different models with hundreds of little bits and pieces you have to get for every combination of lenses, filters, masks and displays.
 
That point with the removable hood made me think about something. Wouldn´t that functionality be useful to convert the mb from a snap-on (compact/light) type to a big production one with a bigger (heavier) hood?
 
There is 1 main reason for taking off the shade or hood. When you are in a tight place like the inside of a car a matte box hood can get in the way and restrict some of your movement. Taking off the hood does not give you that much more room but often a little bit more room is all you need to get the shot. The reason you would want the MB assembly still on the camera without the hood would be in instances when you need your filters in front of the lense.

Ripped jeans in that video Brook. Are you just trying to tease us all with a little skin?
 
OT Finner, maybe it got discussed already. talking about skin, is that david hasselhoff (michael knight) as your avatar ? Naked ?
 
kalone said:
OT Finner, maybe it got discussed already. talking about skin, is that david hasselhoff (michael knight) as your avatar ? Naked ?
Click to expand...

Hoff still loves me the best. :love:
 
OMFG, that´s really disgusting, dude - sorry, I mean Mr. Lebowski.
 
big lebowski said:
Speaking of the Hoff...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYj6TceYio0

:sick:
Click to expand...

Thanks big lebowski. I use to have "The Dude" as my avatar, you know a lofty role model to aspire to but after someone else took it so I switched to the Hoff and boy am I glad I did. Just look at that guy party, he really knows how to live the good life. It just fills me with pride to see Hoff knowing his dreams and sticking to em!!!!!
 
Tim, thanks for your input.. the mechanism I have in mind to get the plunger on the other side of the box is very simple.. I'll post some renderings as soon as I get the design finished. Just remember that if we don't innovate we go nowhere... we'd still be hand cranking cameras if someone didn't buck the trend at some point.

With regards to the carbon fiber... I wanted to use it for weight reduction, not bling (although I said I wanted it just because its cool). A CF sun shade can be half the thickness of a vac-formed part and has a weight reduction of about 30 grams. At Lockheed we used nothing but carbon fiber on our solar arrays and various internal satellite structures - there are plenty of ways to get a matte finish on CF.

BTW... companies like Arri and Lockheed are very similar.. they make very few products and they have a big budget to do so. Budget directly impacts innovation, if you have money to spare then you don't need to innovate... just spend more on some machining operations to take care of the problem. I like to innovate regardless of what budget I have.
 
Agreed... I found that Lockheed had way to much money and time. My job was never stressful when we worked on gov't stuff and just about everyone was working to about 10% of their potential. Typical schedules were in the tens of years. Pretty sad.
 
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