"Shawshank's Redemption" has a budget of $25 million. The main filming of the film started in June 1993 and ended in August of the same year. The crew usually shoot six days a week and work up to 18 hours a day.
Director De Labont believes that he has benefited a lot from the filming process. In his opinion, the photographer Diggins who disagrees most with him during the filming process is the photographer Deakins. De Labont hopes that the shots are beautiful, but Diggins thinks The scenery outside the prison should be taken as little as possible, which can enhance the claustrophobic feeling of the movie, and once the wide-angle lens appears, the picture can be more shocking.
Producer Nikki Marvin spent five months searching for abandoned prisons suitable for framing throughout the United States and Canada, requiring both permanent beauty and complete discontinuation of use, because the film material needs to be shot several times a day Hours, shooting in prisons that have not been disabled will pose a safety hazard. In the end, she chose thelocated in Mansfield, Ohio, USA , to film the fictional Shawshank State Prison in Maine in the film. The main reason for choosing here was that the reformatory was a gothic brick. Stone building. But because it is too dilapidated, the crew had to renovate before filming. The indoor scene was shot in a studio, because repairing the interior of the prison is more expensive than building the same set. The reformatory was closed in 1990 due to lack of humane living conditions, and it had been three years since the filming started.
The reformatory occupies an area of 6.07 hectares and has an independent power plant and farm. It was partially demolished shortly after the filming was completed, leaving only the main management building and two prison buildings. Many of the unique internal facilities of the prison in the film, such as the detention room and the warden’s office, were shot in the reformatory. The interior of the boarding house where Brooks and Reid lived was taken in the administration building, but the outside scene was filmed elsewhere. The crew set up a studio at the nearby Westinghouse Electric Factory, which was used to film the inside of the cell. Director De La Bonte asked the door of the cell to face other cells. For this reason, the crew set up a special location for the Westinghouse Electric Factory. Almost all the bridges in the cell were completed here. Only the real murderer, Elmo Blatche, admitted to the killing. The scenes of Mrs. Dufran and the lover were filmed in a real prison cell. In addition, the film was also shot in Mansfield and nearby Ashland. At the end of the film, Andy hid the letter to Reid under an oak tree, which is actually located near Malabar Farm State Park in Lucas, Richland County, Ohio. It was blown down by strong winds in 2016.
At the end of the film, Andy and Reid reunited in Zihuatanejo, Mexico, but just as the prison in Maine was shot in Ohio, the scene in Zihuatanejo was actually set in the Caribbean, US Virgin Islands. Filmed on Croy Island, the beach is actually located in the Sandy Point National Wildlife Refuge (Sandy Point National Wildlife Refuge) established on the island to protect leatherback turtles. Reid and his inmates were doing woodwork when they heard the clip of "The Wedding of Figaro". This scene was filmed in the woodworking shop in Upper Sandski, which was later renamed "Shawshank Woodshop" (Shawshank Woodshop); The opening court scene was shot in Wyandotte County Courthouse. Other filming locations include Pugh Chalet in Malabar Farm State Park, which was used to film the scene where Andy was sitting outside and his wife cheating inside the house. The small village of Buxton in Maine in the film is actually Butler, a small town in Richland County, Ohio. After being released on parole, Brooks and Reid lived in the halfway house, and the actual location was the Bissman Building in Mansfield.
Director De Labont’s original idea for the escape section was to let Andy smash the sewage pipe with a stone hammer, but then realized that this was impossible, so he switched to using a big rock to smash the sewage pipe. In the film, Andy crawls to freedom from the sewage pipe with feces everywhere, but the sewage is actually made by mixing water, chocolate syrup and wood chips. Art director Terrence Marsh said that Andy fell into the creek after climbing the sewage pipe, and the water inside was actually poisonous. The crew blocked the downstream part of the stream to make the stream deeper, and at the same time purifies the water by means of chlorination. Robbins said that when making movies, you should pay attention to obedience like a soldier, and don't delay everyone's work, even if you sometimes need to take the risk of harming your health or endangering your own safety. According to the original plan, the duration of the scene was much longer, and the dramatic effect was stronger. It was necessary to follow Andy across the field and get on the train, but because the shooting time was only one night, it was shortened to Andy standing in the water. In the rain stretched his arms to make a victory gesture. Diggins was very dissatisfied with the photography of this scene. He felt that the lighting at that time was too bright; but the director did not think that, in his opinion, considering that the shooting time was very short at that time, his requirements for timing and accuracy were different. Very high, so Dickins must be very precise in determining which shots to take, and how to take them. In an interview in 2019, De Labont expressed regret that he was unable to take a close-up shot of Andy's face when he climbed out of the cell channel in his eagerness to complete the filming.
In the film, Andy deliberately violated the guard's order to play music through the prison radio. The original setting was to turn off the music. The inmates watching the movie "Gilda" starring Rita Hayworth also differed from the original plan. Billy Wilder's movie "Lost Weekend", which was about the dangers of alcoholism, was supposed to be played. This is mainly because the price of Paramount Pictures, which owns the copyright of "Lost Weekend", is too high. For this reason, the producer Marvin contacted Columbia Pictures, which has the domestic distribution rights of "Shawshank's Redemption", and Columbia Pictures listed low prices. In the list of high-priced movies, there is "Gilda" among them. Most scenes of the movie are shot in and around the prison, so the shots are mostly shot in chronological order according to different eras of the plot. This in turn is beneficial to the performance of the actors, because their relationship in real life can also develop like the characters in the film. Director De La Bonte said that Andy told Rhett about his dream of living in Mexico. The filming time of this scene was relatively late. When reviewing the film production process, he often rewatched this part. He praised Robbins and Freeman for only shooting. Satisfactory results are achieved in a few times.
