Installing a laravel app but getting 404 and 500 error

the problem is with vhost conf and rewrite rules and changing root document. when i change the root document from project.domain.com root to project.domain.com/public, i get 500 error

i tried using the solution usmannasir wrote here BUT no effect. the domain project.domain.com has SSL

i have to drop the whole app into project.domain.com and the app has a public folder which has to be the root directory so do i change the vhost conf or do i use rewrite rules to make it work? why doesnt changing vhost conf rootdoc fix this?