Jonathan had always intended to use the image of three deckchairs for his poster design. He took the photo in the summer of 1992 and wrote a screenplay called ‘Riptide by the Pier’ inspired by the image - which would be part of the seedling for ‘Summer Rain’. Once filming started at a key scene on the beach had been completed the image was committed to celluloid and locked deeper in Jonathan’s mind as the key image for the film. Fortunately, Maxine agreed to use this image as her starting point.
Original Artwork
Characters & Cast
Neil
Mary
Carly
Melanie
Vicky
Craig
Dylan
Fenton
Karen
Polly
Travel Agent
Lecturer
Tara
Susan
Security
Manager
Colin
Daz
Paul
Emma
Club Torso
Becky
Justine
Gary
Michael
Travel Agent
Acrobats
Performers
Charlie Allen
Shelley Miranda Barrett
Daisy Beaumont
Teresa Lam
Lara Clancy
Andy Crabb
Tim Crumpton
Guy Daley
Kate Davis
Amber Edlin
Lora Fay Elliott
David Gilbrook
Molly Hallum
Elizabeth Jasicki
Damon Jeffery
Mark Little
Paul Maddocks
Darren Morgan
Simon Paul
Jasmine Randall
Alex Reid
Catherine Sampson
Carla Tucknott
Paul Vaughan Evans
Charlie Watts
Jayne White
Skintight
Sara Richards
Darrin Selkirk
Karen Cruicks
Original Artwork by Maxine Lea
Jonathan met Maxine in the Font & Firkin pub in Brighton on August 30th 1999. Their friendship resulted in Maxine agreeing to create all the initial artwork for Summer Rain as her graduation project for her design degree for Norwich University. In return, Jonathan would have lots of lovely and original artwork.
Maxine used the original photography but put her own unique take on it which delighted Jonathan. Bright, summery, different and yet true to Jonathan’s original vision. Jonathan was so delighted with the artwork that it has become the basis for the company’s entire profile and branding as well as the original movie.
“Maxine’s input to Summer Rain can not be underestimated”
Jonathan Glendening.
Jonathan tried his best to keep as much of Maxine’s work as possible through the release process. Her artwork accompanied the film all over the world to the many film festivals that Summer Rain was screened at. However, when Chrysalis Distribution (now All3Media) took the TV rights to the film, their promotional materials took a different slant.
When Eureka signed up Summer Rain to release it on DVD - they again, took a different slant. Instead of using Maxine’s ‘artwork’ of the original photo, the designers at Ginger Pumpkin reverted back to just using the original photo, thinking perhaps that the blue of the ocean would make the DVD jump off the shelves.
Ginger Pumpkin kept Maxine’s original yellow for the sky, but reverted the 3 deck chairs back to the original film image. However, they introduced a new sea back drop and introduced Brighton Pier, which although makes the image ‘uglier’, certainly sets the scene for an unmistakable ‘Brighton’ movie. The DVD was also able to introduce the cast header, which features the cameo of ‘Mark Little’ and the legend ‘A film by Jonathan Glendening’. The type font was changed from Maxine’s design, but again they kept the red, but introduced black for alternate words. The 1-liner was also introduced for the DVD cover of ‘A tale of sex, chocolate & ice-cream’ to try to convey the sunny, light hearted nature of the film about three girls and their last summer together. Although perhaps ‘sex’ was a bit misleading.
