No worries. I'm always happy to teach people about cameras and tech. A matte box is not the same thing as a lens hood. A lens hood is used to block/reduce sun flares and while a matte box does do the same thing it's much more adjustable so they do have that in common but the bigger reason to use a matte box is for filters. With traditional photo lenses, many are different sizes so you would need a filter for each lens. With a matte box, you can use a single filter and adapt the matte box to any lens which saves time and money. Plus when used with cinema lenses you can swap lenses without having to take off all of the filters and it saves time on set.