shooting a trailer before the actual movie

[georgefox]

any tips on how to shoot a trailer for my post apocolyiptic zombie film so that i can get more money from people to invest in the film i only have 5000 dollars with a story like the script i posted

[ngm231]

i just like you am an aspiring filmmaker, my best advice my lame ass can give you is to shoot maybe a three or four minute little short, that either is a part from the script or somthing that leads you into the general idea you have, like if youve seen street trash, the filmmakers made a short to get buyers interested in investing in it. but then again you should probably take what i say with a grain of salt because im just an amature, very amature

[lifelikecarcass]

A trailer is meant to be a glimpse of the actual film, containing some of the more poignant shots and advertising the finished concept. You don't want to make a trailer because people will assume that it reflects the finished work and make their judgement based on that. Your best bet is to storyboard your script. There are free and cheap applications that allow you to take rough sketches and arrange them in a sequence to form a storyboard animatic. Or you could do a rough video sketch that just has a few actors that act out some of the key concepts of your film. If you're after funding, you'll want to wait til after you have it to release anything that reflects the finished product. Do you know where you are planning to seek this funding from? If this is just a small personal thing, you might want to just approach family and/or friends and ask for personal loans or something. Asking people to invest suggests that they will profit in the long run. And small projects like student films rarely, and I mean very rarely, turn out any kind of profit. To make money you need a distributor and an audience that's willing to pay to see your film. It's best to be honest up front and ask for a loan rather than act like you have an investment opportunity.

[MinionZombie]

A short segment of the film in a complete form would be better than a trailer, kinda like what Sam Raimi did before The Evil Dead.

[GingeUK]

I was just going to suggest the same thing as MinionZombie. Film only a short scene from your film and let the investors go from there. The good thing is that if you get the casting done well then the film will look good, even if the production values are not up to scratch just yet. Plus it's a damn sight cheaper than trying to film bits and pieces from all over the film.

[lifelikecarcass]

kinda like what Sam Raimi did before The Evil Dead. I was thinking the same exact thing here.

[C5NOTLD]

Fake production value. Give it a bigger appearance. Get local police/ambulance to offer vehicles. Shoot interesting/hard to get into locations, etc.. What you want to do is to show investors that you can do all of this without their money and for them to consider what you could do if you had their money...