DIY – Create Your Own White Box

DIY – Create Your Own White Box

Tutorial Details
  • Requirements: A Cardboard Box, Window Film, Poster Board, 3 Lights, Knife, Tape, and a Small Subject.
  • Difficulty: Beginner
  • Run Time: 12 min

Final Product What You'll Be Creating

In this tutorial we’ll be creating a White Box which will allow you to take awesome close up photos in a seamless “Matrix-like” space. There is plenty of information on the web on how to create a White Box so I don’t claim to have “come up with” this idea. All that’s important to me is that it’s in front of your eyes now so this can be an option for your future projects. Enjoy!

Republished Tutorial

Every few weeks, we revisit some of our reader's favorite posts from throughout the history of the site. This tutorial was first published in July of 2010.


Tutorial

Download Tutorial .flv

File size 133MB

Adam Everett Miller is everettoptions on Videohive
  • Rik de Vos

    Looks awesome!!

    I’ve always wanted to have my own white box. Thanks guys!

    Rik de Vos

  • http://www.tripodbg.com Stefan

    Great! I was waiting for something like this for a long time. Thanks for sharing! Also it will be great if you make a tutorial about how to create home made DSLR rig with follow focus. This will be amazing!

  • http://www.videohive.net/user/mocarg Mocarg

    Great! Just perfect! Like Stefan said it would be great to make a tutorial about DSLR rig!

    P.S.
    I fell of my chair when you read the fortune cookie xD

  • Naveen

    Good Tutorial! Thank you! Real words of wisdom..Always cut towards the intern :D

  • Lawrence

    Great DIY, not really the usually tut for ae but still very helpful.I kind of like the variety

  • Billy

    Hilarious! Before I opened up this tutorial I was thinking….isn’t it great when the editor himself of AETUTS.com can’t figure out that this is a tutorial for phototuts! Then I open it up and figure out that he did figure this out….but then went ahead and posted it on AETUTS anyway.

    Good photo tut Adam….you know I love ya man….but c’mon! Why can’t we have AEtuts here….and AEtuts only? If I want a phototut (and I’m a photographer and I frequent phototuts all the time) I will go to phototuts.

  • hihaho.css

    nice, but, if i need to take a picture of a man? :)

    • baka

      Put him into the box :p

  • Moritz

    Really cool and helpful tutorial!
    Thank you.

  • http://visualfxtuts.com Topher Welsh

    This is awesome… I actually saw some gigs on Craigslist asking for product shots with white boxes… now I can take them on! haha

    I love it when you do your video tuts with you in them, because, well… it just shows that you go the extra mile for your stuff.

    AWESOME.

    haha and I actually LOL’d at the end.

  • http://vimeo.com/johnmichalec John Michalec

    Awesome information! Throughout the tut I was really diggin all the Ocean’s music.

  • http://www.sefsar.com Youssef Sarhan

    Good stuff Adam. Really like the way this tut is cut and presented. High-Quality work.

    Oh and just noticed your new name.. congrats on getting married.

  • http://aepal.com Murat Erozturk

    Great stuff Adam! This tip can be used for a wide variety of subjects so it is definitely a good asset to hold on to.

    Thanks for sharing!

  • http://no Rodrigo

    jajaj great

    saludos de Chile!

  • illd

    Great one. Cool to see whats going on the other Platforms. But I didn´t like the Dell productplacement ;)

  • http://www.adamkellymedia.com Adam Kelly

    Hi Adam, or anyone actually… (firstly i apologise because this is totally unrelated to the post above) but I was hoping someone could help me out!

    I’m an experienced After Effects user (5 and a bit years) and have been working in a studio for the past 3 years but basically, my parent controls have disappeared from my Timeline window in After Effects. I’ve been searching forums all morning trying to get it back, i’ve tried resetting window positions, emptying the cache, opening autosave versions, everything but there doesn’t seem to be anything on there to bring them back.

    I think what i probably did was have the cursor at around 11/12 seconds in the timeline, then accidently hit B instead of V for selction tool. This caused the first 11 seconds to grey out and the Time Ruler moved up to my cursor position. I assume that as pulled the time ruler back to the start that it affected my parent controls, but i’ve no idea how.

    I’m running CS3 on an intel Mac Pro, in the Timeline window it has all the icons (show/hide video, audio, lock etc), then Source/Layer Name, then a vertical line and Mode and Track Mat. When i hit toggle this changes to show continuous rasterization, motion blur, 3d layer etc controls. Then there is another vertical line, the parent controls should be after that but as i pull it either to the left or right, it stays the same distance from the Timeline.

    This is about as much info as i can give without posting a screengrab.

    In relation to the post – i like the box!!

    Please help me!

    Regards,
    Adam

    • http://www.youtube.com/benwottonvfx Ben Wotton

      Simply right click anywhere where the title ‘parent’ should be, (You know where track matte, transfer modes etc are. And go to columns>parent. ;)

      • Ben Wotton

        Aaaand I JUST realised that this comment is 2 years old, lol. Ah well I hope this helps someone else out at some point. :P

  • pboona

    this is the dumbest tutorial ive ever seen! ;)

  • http://lifeasamissionary.com Marcus Williamson

    Thanks guys. First time doing this and it was fun! I exchanged the window film ($18 at Lowes) for regular parchment paper ($2ish at Hobby Lobby) Other than that things look great!

  • Gavin

    Cool…. Who rides the unicycle?

    • http://www.vimeo.com/everettoptions Adam Everett Miller
      Author

      haha, I bought it with good intentions… yeah, haven’t found the time! one of these days….

  • Hero976

    nice tutorial! thanks!

    btw, did i hear a fart at 1:35-1:37?

    :)

    • http://www.vimeo.com/everettoptions Adam Everett Miller
      Author

      It was the box lid… but it did sound like it….

  • http://www.videoniqs.com p

    ahhhhh……did i hear a fart at 1:35-1:37?

  • PRONOUNCE IT RIGHT!

    WHY DOES EVERYBODY SAY “TUHTS”?? It’s a “TOOT”ORIAL SITE!
    AE “TOOTS”! Tut Tut…

    Oh, and thanks :) Will go watch the rest now.

  • mohamed

    thanks adam,thats what we call tutorial…..thanks man

  • http://www.lucid-media.co.za Yashvir Bagwandeen

    I followed the instructions but I did not make a fortune cookie like the photo promises. Oh well.

  • http://www.zebravideo.ca video companies toronto

    well , hope you will make a tutorial how to videoshoot people inside. All my location problem will desappear then.

  • http://www.snaptin.com Ian Yates

    Nice! That last clip… so very…. Adam E Miller :)

  • Marten

    Nice one. But you might want to consider putting that box on a table next time. Should be more convenient ;)

  • AK

    You know you can buy a thing called a “light tent” which is pretty much exactly this, and it folds away into a bag like a reflector. Only costs about £15 on this side of the pond. Seems a lot of hassle for something so cheap.

  • Ubiq

    I love DIY solutions, so thanks. Just, the music in this video was so distractive to me, that I actually turned off the sound entirely…

  • http://aedorde.com Djordje Pivnicki

    Great! I love DIY stuffs :)

  • http://natevolk.com Nate

    If you used a mac instead of a dell you would have a white box to start with :)

  • http://www.zebravideo.ca video production toronto

    awesome tut thanks, hope i will have a assignment related to product shot.