Facts About “The Shawshank Redemption” You Probably Didn’t Know
One of the most famous characters from the book and movie, other than Red and Andy, was Brooks. He was taking care of a baby crow named Jake until he was strong enough to fly. And Jake has a great introduction scene when Andy finds a maggot in his food and gives it to Brooks after he had asked the newer inmate, “Are you gonna eat that?” Of course, they wanted to keep it in the film. But the American Humane Association stepped in. It was considered animal cruelty to the maggot for it to be fed to a crow. Eventually, the filmmakers found a maggot that had died of natural causes to feed to their crow.
At one point in the film, Andy visits Brooks and Jake the crow in the prison’s library. He talks to the crow, who keeps squawking. Tim Robbins actually had to time his lines so that the squawks wouldn’t interrupt him and ruin the take. Robbins eventually got this down to a science so that Jake wouldn’t ruin any of their takes with his squawking. If you look at Robbins carefully in the scene you can actually see that he’s waiting for Jake before speaking in some instances.
A lot of Stephen King novels are set in Maine, but this movie was filmed in Ohio. They filmed in 13 different locations, and they all became tourist destinations to Shawshank fans. 18,000 people have gone to Ohio since 1994 to visit these sites, earning the local economy around $3 million. You can also buy some Shawshank paraphernalia or food. At Ohio’s “Shawshank Trail”, you can get Reformatory “Red” Wines or Shawshank Bundt Cakes. And at Two Cousins’ Pizza, you can get a slice of “Redemption Pie”.
As much as the movie is considered a beloved classic today the film was considered a commercial flop. It only made $18 million at the box office, which didn’t even cover studio costs. The movie made $10 million more after being nominated for several Oscars, but that still didn’t help get it out of the hole yet. It was the 320,000 rental copies that Warner Home Video shipped across the US that finally made the movie profitable. Morgan Freeman actually speculated that the film’s name was hard to pronounce, which made it difficult for the film to become popular through word of mouth.
A much of a master The Shawshank Redemption is, it still had scenes on the cutting room floor. The movie included some scenes that helped to add more depth to the characters, such as Jake’s funeral, Tommy getting a visit from his wife, or Red having a panic attack while working at the grocery store. He actually hides in the bathroom because it feels like a cell to him. Even so, Darabont didn’t include any “bonus features” in the DVD release of the movie. He was actually just too embarrassed to show them and thought it would be better if people never saw them.
Morgan Freeman’s voice over for the film is iconic. Even so, it must have been really annoying that he needed to record it twice. The first time took him 40 minutes and was played out loud during filming to help set the rhythm of each scene. Unfortunately, the recording had a hiss in it that the sound engineers just couldn’t fix. So, Freeman had to come in and do a second recording. Except this one took three weeks to finish.
It might not be that surprising that The Shawshank Redemption wasn’t filmed at a real prison. It was filmed at a reformatory, the abandoned Ohio State Reformatory in Mansfield. But this building was primarily used to film the exterior shots. They did film the interior shots on a sound stage. It was cheaper to build a replica of the inside as opposed to renovating the decaying jail.
The set of Shawshank’s prisoner cell block was built from scratch using plastic sheets over windows and lamps to simulate daylight. This setup was quite hazardous. At one point, one of the lamps got too close to one of the sheets and caught fire. Fortunately, Darabont and an extra were on their way to get coffee and extinguished the fire before it became a bigger problem.
During the climax of the movie, Andy escapes from prison by digging a hole in his cell and then crawling through the sewers. Climbing through miles of elbow-deep sewage is obviously disgusting. Which is why it’s probably a good thing Tim Robbins didn’t actually have to do that. The sludge was actually a fake waste mixture of chocolate syrup, sawdust, and water. Some people say that the popes still smell like chocolate today.
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