<P> The 15 - acre reformatory, housing its own power plant and farm, was partially torn down shortly after filming was completed, leaving the main administration building and two cell blocks . Several of the interior shots of the specialized prison facilities, such as the admittance rooms and the warden's office, were shot in the reformatory . The interior of the boarding room used by Brooks and Red was in the administration building; exterior shots of the boarding house were taken elsewhere . Internal scenes in the prison cellblocks were filmed on a soundstage built inside a nearby shuttered Westinghouse Electric factory . Since Darabont wanted the inmates' cells to face each other, almost all the cellblock scenes were shot on a purpose - built set housed in the Westinghouse factory except for the scene featuring Elmo Blatch's admission of guilt for the crimes for which Andy was convicted . It was filmed in one of the actual prison's more confined cells . Scenes were also filmed in Mansfield, as well as neighboring Ashland, Ohio . The oak tree under which Andy buries his letter to Red was located near Malabar Farm State Park, in Lucas, Ohio; it was destroyed by winds in 2016 . </P> <P> Just as a prison in Ohio stood in for a fictional one in Maine, the beach scene showing Andy and Red's reunion in Zihuatanejo, Mexico, was actually shot in the Caribbean on the island of Saint Croix, one of the U.S. Virgin Islands . The beach at' Zihuatanejo' is the Sandy Point National Wildlife Refuge, a protected area for leatherback sea turtles . Scenes shot in Upper Sandusky included the prison wood shop scene where Red and his fellow inmates hear "The Marriage of Figaro" (the woodshop is now called the Shawshank Woodshop), and the opening court scene which was shot at the Wyandot County Courthouse . Other shooting locations included Pugh Cabin in Malabar Farm State Park, where Andy sits outside as his wife engages in an affair, Butler, Ohio which stood in for Buxton, Maine, and The Bissman Building in Mansfield, which served as the hotel where Brooks stayed following his incarceration . </P> <P> While the film portrays Andy escaping to freedom through a sewer pipe described as a "river of shit", Robbins crawls through a mixture of water, chocolate syrup, and sawdust . The stream into which Robbins emerges was actually certified toxic by a chemist according to production designer Terence Marsh . Of the scene, Robbins said, "when you're doing a film, you want to be a good soldier--you don't want to be the one that gets in the way . So you will do things as an actor that are compromising to your physical health and safety ." As for the scene where Andy rebelliously plays music over the prison announcement system, it was Robbins' idea for Andy to turn the music up and not shut it off . While in the finished film the inmates watch Rita Hayworth in Gilda (1946), they were originally intended to be watching Billy Wilder's The Lost Weekend (1945), a film about the dangers of alcohol . As the footage was too costly to procure from Paramount Pictures, producer Niki Marvin approached The Shawshank Redemption's domestic distribution rights - holder Columbia Pictures, who offered a list of lower - priced titles, one of which was Gilda . </P> <P> The final cut of the theatrically released film runs for 142 minutes, and was dedicated to Allen Greene, Darabont's former agent who died during filming from AIDS . The film's first edit ran for nearly two and a half hours, which Glotzer considered "long", and several scenes were cut including a longer sequence of Red adjusting to life post incarceration; Darabont said that in test screenings the audience seemed to be getting impatient with the scene as they were already convinced that Red would not make it . Another scene cut for time showed a prison guard investigating Andy's escape tunnel; it was thought this slowed down the action . The film originally had a cold open that played out Andy's crime, with his trial playing throughout the opening credits, but these scenes were edited together to create a more "punchy" opening . One scripted scene, which Darabont described as his best work, was left unfilmed because of the shooting schedule . In the scene, a dreaming Red is sucked into the poster of Rita Hayworth to find himself alone and insignificant on the Pacific shore, saying "I am terrified, there is no way home ." Darabont said that he regretted being unable to capture the scene . </P>

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