Rectangular Bokeh

It's because they use hard mattes in the mattebox. It's because the wide open aperature on some lenses is actually bigger than the cutout on the hard matte. What ends up happening is the matte actually becomes the iris and then that defines the bokeh pattern. Very similar to that heart shaped one.

The one I remember it with was The Natural. Although a bit older, you'll see it in there.

Sorta what I'm talking about...

http://www.filmtools.com/338300.html
 
ah.. thanks Ryan.

so it's basically the same effect as the cutout trick.

why would that be used? for aesthetic, or practical reasons?
 
Honestly, I don't know why they did it on that movie. I would think it's for aestethic reasons though, because if the flare really is not wanted, you can always set flags, or change the position of the light to compensate.

But 95% of the time hard mattes are used for practical reasons. They are used to block out all the unwanted light from the lens, it's just in this one situation that they actually affect other things as well.
 
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