You could interpret your question many different ways. Before opening up any film boxes, do yourself a favor and do a "dry" run, without any chance of ruining your film.
Set up your camera as if to take a photo of something with lots of light, ideally with the light source (the sun) to your side. If you open up the lens and have the camera set up right, you should be able to focus on the ground glass. ANYTHING will serve as a darkcloth, but obviously the more opaque and dark it is, the better it will be at shielding your eyese from extraneous light, allowing you to see the image on the ground glass easier. Some of us buy $100 handsewn contraptions - others of us use an old black t-shirt. Great photos have been made with both.
Practice composing, focusing, and moving the camera. Pretend to insert an (empty) film holder and make an exposure. Doing it without knocking the camera of out position or doing something silly takes some practice.
Once you are semi-proficient, learn to load film. The best way is to find another photographer to show you how, but baring that, try this:
1. Find an 99.999999% dark room. Like a windowless bathroom on a cloudy night with no nightlights or light beams sneaking through keyholes or door frames. Use towels, tape, black construction paper, whatever to hold you. Many famous photos have been developed in hotel bathrooms.
2. Clean and dry a flat working area the size of a small desktop. Hopefully you bought a ten sheet box of film instead of a fifty, because you don't want to screw up 50 at a time...
3. Turn off the lights...
4. Open the box. There are three layers of boxes. Note how they stack into themselves to provide a light tight seal. Inside the innermost box will be a foil paper envelope containing the film. Usually there are cardboard peices on the top and bottom of the film, and some brands may have interleaving tissue. Film feels like film, paper feels like paper.
Withdrawn TWO peices of film and set them aside. Put the rest of the film away exactly the way you withdrew it. Close up the box. Turn on the lights.
5. Immediately tape the opened box of film shut with TWO pieces of tape, and make on the outside in Roman numerals "II" to show that you removed two sheets.
6. Take your now fogged and worthless two sheets of film and use them to practice loading your film holders. Read the rest of the internet to find out how to load the bloody holders.
7. All of this sounds intimidating. It's not. You will screw it up at first, but with practice remember that barely functional idiots have been using view cameras for almost 200 years now.
Finally, a good changing "tent" (not a limp bag) will more practical than waiting for a cloudy moonless night. Calument (online) sells one for $50 or so that is decent.
As for film holder cleaniless, try your best but don't get anal, at least at first. Work towards get proper exposures and processing, and shoot alot so you don't bog down or lose enthusiasm too quickly.
Later, you can get lazy and use Readyloads like sane people. They are easier than film holders and always clean, but they cost twice as much. 4x5 Polaroid is also a great learning tool, but it is also $$$.
Have fun and good luck. Ask stupid questions here ;-)
- After 2 years of 4x5 I still manage to mess-up about 1 in 4 shots one way or another - there are just so many things you have to do at the right time and in the right order - great when it all comes together though!
