As someone who works in this industry I can tell you the artist who made this definitely cared... They probably made some incredible versions of the poster in the process but through feedback from marketing directors and other stakeholders the idea gets watered down and distorted until eventually you run out of time... I've seen this happen so, so many times.

To me the most likely scenario is that a very (or at least decently) skilled artist received a message at like 11pm saying "here are some shitty images we took while rushing production. Make a poster for us by midnight bc we're tight on schedule" and just did their best. They probably hates the poster just as much as you do.

You’re forgetting reason 5: sometimes the artist does a great job then it gets nitpicked and feedbacked to death by higher ups who would insist the character should have its original characters and not have it be as affected by the surrounding light etc

My theory is that the poster originally looked more like yours, but one of those “yes people” kept asking the artist to change things. “Why is Mando green? Make him silver! “I can’t see the jetpack! Make it more visible!” “Put some light around Baby Yoda so people can see him better!” “Add some fire in the corner opposite the logo. Fire is cool!”

Someone needs to hire this man to create a movie poster

Scenario 3 and 4 100%. Great job Benny. As always.

There are, based on my own experience working at these kind of large corps, two other scenarios. The first is that the designer actually did a fantastic job with what they were given to work with and the time they had to work on it. I bet some overworked person received that at 6pm and were told to have it done by 7 and they couldn't leave until it was done, and got a bunch of low res action shots and had to cobble something together to match from their older, better quality shots, so they probably had fifteen to thirty minutes to do the actual photoshopping. They knew just as well as you did that it was crappy but hey, at least the image was coherent and not pixelated. Or, and this is most likely in my mind, some exec saw the properly put together one and started saying "no no use the helmet in this photo! No wait, we need to see his jetpack so they know it's there so move it over here. No no, move it farther. But your colors are too green, they don't match the exact dye used in the toys make this shinier and exactly this color." I can't tell you how many times I flawlessly photoshopped a sign into a photo with beautiful lighting and perfect perspective, only to have to remove it and just lay the sign over the top with no lighting or perspective to make it fit into the photo because some exec threw a hissy fit that the lighting made the sign "the wrong blue" and "why isn't this a rectangle?"

Hi Benny! I rarely post comments on youtube but now it’s my time to shine haha. I work at Disney and these posters are usually done by this one team in particular that only review the art within themselves. Once they are satisfied with the result, they share the artwork with the rest of the company but the main rule is to NOT change anything, so interns and graphic designers (like myself) have to work with what we’re given with no chance to adjust it. Honestly, I think they really only care about getting it done asap and promote it everywhere. I could be wrong though, cause I’m not in that area of the company, but it’s what I’ve noticed while working here. Big fan of your work Benny, keep it up! :)

It seems to me that at the beginning, Disney got something like Benny, but then the "art director" came and said that it was necessary 1) brighter 2) more fire 3) larger jetpack 4) so that there was light behind :D

In my experience working in creative departments for large corps, everything is moving so fast to meet a deadline, the deadline is the only thing that matters. The quality of the creative is an afterthought. Because the department is most likely overloaded pumping out deliverables, "This is awesome!" is traded out for "This''ll do."

imagine they would've made the composition so the character would be standing directly in front of you and really close... because he came nearer and nearer from season 1 to 2! that would've been SOOO cool!

As a designer working for a large company, you forgot scenario 5: they gave the marketing and art teams an unreasonably short amount of time to put the proper amount of care into their work.

As a designer who has worked with companies like this, it was most likely the third scenario. A lot of times the people giving notes on these types of projects aren’t nearly as skilled as the designer and genuinely don’t notice these things. And people who sign off on it from other departments definitely aren’t noticing because it’s not their job to (ie. Legal, stakeholders, etc.)

As someone who works in design/advertising for a major company, I would love to spend this amount of time messing around with a image, crafting it to make it absolutely perfect, but the reality is most of my deadlines give me only a few hours to perfect something before it has to be sent to print or handed over to production for them to resize hundreds of versions in various aspect ratios and I’m moved onto the next project. The current pace of advertising is so fast and the amount of content that needs to be produced means that quality suffers in favour of speed and quantity. So I feel for whoever made this, it’s no fun to see half finished work go to print.

Something bugged me the moment I saw this poster. I immediately assumed it was a good fan-made poster and did a double take when I realised it was official. Compositionally, I'm not a fan because the other mando posters have him in a strictly vertical pose, but the lighting and colour changes you made have improved it massively for me. Fantastic job!

So my newest freelance gig is Key Art for movies and Netflix TV shows. Since starting, I’ve learned a lot about how some of this is done so I may be able to provide some insight here. One thing to keep in mind is Disney may not have even made this. If you’re familiar with special effects in movies, multiple studios will help make one movie because some specialize in a certain thing (water dynamics for example). Also, there could just be so many VFX shots it’s impossible to all be done in house. And same goes for promo materials. Big companies will outsource and work with outside agencies for Key Art. The process can be different. Sometimes the outside agency is involved early on and will draft up concepts for the studio. Once concepts are approved, the production company will shoot promo material to match the concepts, even send over 3D renders, as well as a ton of unit photography. The outside agency then uses that material and makes the posters. This is a best case scenario. Other times, there isn’t time for the concept stage and an outside agency is hired to just provide as many visuals as possible for the studio to choose from using assets the studio provided and loose direction. This may have been what happened here. They may not have received many images of grogu to even use, this one actually looks like unit photography (a photographer is on set to capture photos for promo material) and that’s just how the image was lit bc it’s probably a scene from the show. One thing to remember about movie posters is they usually need to follow a bit of a formula and there’s some rules within that. Now, that doesn’t mean you can’t be creative or make good work. This poster is not bad, your version is definitely better. But if you look at a lot of key art for posters, lighting doesn’t often match because it’s almost more of a collage than an actual scene. Artists are working with the photos they are given under the direction they were given. So again I’m not trying to make excuses but we have to remember there’s a lot of outside factors that come into play with this stuff. Sorry this was long but hope this was useful to everyone!

Benny should make a series out of fixing bad posters. I really like these kinds of videos.

As a life long, professional visual artist, I can't even count the number of times people in management turned my art into garbage. It happens on every level, in every genre. It blows me away that they hire people and then tell them to do something against all of our training.

very inspiring work! i love watching you look at an image, point out all the flaws, and demonstrate one by one how to fix them while also addressing the things you couldn’t fix. makes me see things i wouldn’t have seen otherwise and then immediately gives me actionable advice on how to mitigate them in future compositions.

Just found your channel and you did an absolute great job in educating guys like me that these posters can be much better. You weren't nitpicking at all! Keep doing what you do!

Disney has a lot more problems than just posters.

There you go

It amazes me how far you’ve come on your channnel Benny! Congrats

An important discipline of being an artist or designer, is to recognize when a piece is good enough. From experience, I'm confident 99.99% of people would not look at those flaws which means it's good enough.

I’ve been taking graphic design at school and my project grades have really improved ever since I found your channel. I love all the content keep it up benny!

Would be interesting to see you create 'your' version of the poster and how you might change the composition?

Great breakdown and insights! Thank you for the awesome video. Serves as a reminder for me on what to look for when designing movie posters. Look forward to the next one!

Agreed on many of your points for the problems with the poster. Good eye for details and corrections. Your revision is better and more professional than what it was from the start.

They should be hiring you like Phaserunner and others have been. On top of the fact that you’re one of the best photoshop artists today you understand all the intricate details that make images make sense. I’d pay for a course done by you! Similar to ones like Photomanipulation’s or Phaserunner’s. Your optical bundle was a great addition to my tools!

Benny, Please make a Series rating and fixing clasic and new posters. Thank you for all your work, you are an inspiration. im finally learning and doing something with my skills, all thx to you. You are great!

After a second I was like what are Dutch!? and you are, awesome! Always great to see someone from my country with international succes! 2 miljoen subs is echt heel nice zeg!

I really learnt a lot from this video about composition. Thanks benny!

I think disney will kick out their Poster Designer after watching this video 😅😅

Scenario 6, they hired a great designer but kept making stupid improvisations like “ good but make the jet pack tilted and make mando less green!”

Good job man! Ihope you are prosperous benny.

For someone who doesn't do Tutorials, you pretty much explain all steps necessary. Even with sped up video you can catch a thing or two. I like it.

I do believe most in the scenario 2. It's all publicity, if they make a bad poster it will give people something more to talk about. As always great work on your edit Benny!

I hate watching big companies like Disney making this kind of mistakes it’s just like a stupid thing when they could just fix it so easy 😭😭, but I’m glad that someone like you tried to fix it, your version is a lot better, anyway I still feel like you could improve a lot more the composition.

Finally, someone talks about the scenarios.... I always thought about these... you talked about all of the probable scenarios. Thanks man

Your passion burns bright and it’s good. Thank you for keeping the standards high 👏

Often lightning choices in marketing illustrations are made to make something pop, more than for realism. It's a push pull act for sure. I bet whoever worked on this one had many higher ups to please hehe 😹

So funny when you roast a big 'corporation'. It makes them look like an amateur. Great job Benny, your lighting skills are awesome. 😄

Thank you for dissecting the issues with the poster. Definitely a learning experience!! Nice work!

Great work! I appreciate what you did there. I am a self taught photo editor since I was in my early 20s (15 years ago) and I’m still learning. This video is teaching me new things. Thanks

Generally, choices are made intentionally and for very specific reasons. Disney is a marketing behemoth as they spend 100's of millions of dollars on marketing research. Every little choice/decision, especially for their most important/top-tier content [ie. The Mandalorian], is made based off of the marketing data. Sure, some of the "issues" that were pointed out might have been a result of an oversight, but those are very far and few between.

I think it could be the time pressure as well (considering how active Disney is currently) allowing for lot of these stuff to slide

I take a break for awhile and come back and bennys already made a banger awesome

your theme park is going so amazing, I have have been waiting for a new episode for sooooooo long!!!!

At this point i think Disney should hire Benny just to review their works.

I think the poster is great to be honest. (1)Light can be used artistically it doesn't really matter. I think they just wanted to put more focus on the characters heads using rimlight. (2)Again, composition, they wanted to feature the jetpack in a better way. Out of practically of being a promotion material I prefer the original one. It is more clean in getting the important selling points across without any compositional distractions. However, artistically I think yours is the winner.

This video for my was very interesting and educational, not only as a Star Wars fan but also as someone who wants to be a graphic designer in the future. Thanks so much and amazing work on the poster!

Your work is great. Love these videos

As an Art Director myself it's probably scenario 3. It starts from the top level art directors, creative directors, and stakeholders, who might not be keenly aware of the finer details and craftsmanship needed as they go through the approval process. In which they aren't able to articulate to the artist working on it what needs to be changes and improved, as the artist might not be aware or have that level of experience. Ultimately it's the Art Director and Creative Director approving it from a creative standpoint. Devil is in the details.

love this great job!! i want your fixed poster.

Benny, I so adore you! Thanks for bringing this to peoples' attention.

Undoubtedly, Art Benny is much better

Now, improving something that already exists should mostly be easier. Now for the next challenge: create a movie poster from scratch, scenario and or Franchise and stuff is your own choice

I was sceptical at first but you nailed it. The fire highlight on the boots especially.

Benny all cool after creating the greatest poster correction i have ever seen! give yourself credit man!

Scenario 5. "Designer, we need a poster this afternoon, because we didn't plan ahead". Happens to me all the time.

Disney always makes better Posters then the people who waste their time fixing those posters

You are the only person on KZfaq for whom I actually wait for a next video. :)

You are inspiring me so much, thank you!

Another likly senario is that the poster was made by a very talented artist who just didnt get the time/budget to make it perfect! :)

Benny to the rescue 😅I really liked how you explained the mistakes and improved them!

Somehow this video seemed more entertaining than usual and I think it's the editing and your rare energy

You’re so talented ! Nice video

As an artist, client comments from non-artistic people definitely led to this outcome.

Other then that it's way to green now...everything else is perfect and i can't believe how disney just keeps on missing and missing with their posters

Amazing! You are really good!

I love your plants you have in the background :)

As you said, it’s likely that they don’t care, or the person in charge of approval just doesn’t notice. The original IG post itself even has plenty of comments where people are like, “I need this as a poster” or “so cool”, and that’s all the companies need to see to not want to do better 🤦🏾‍♂️ Good job on the edit tho! 🙌🏾

Buddy 💜🙌💗🔥

Benny your so good at what you do!

Great work man! I really hope the film industry doesn't drive into this direction any further

I've been following you for 2 years and I learn so much from you on your poster and composition break downs, my concept art compositions become better and still getting better with these crucial details you explaining. 🍻

I do love you work..but sometimes in such cases, it feels like you are a bit disrespective twoards the people behind the artworks or like you are trying desperately (with the wrong way) to get hired by disney. You are really talented. You'll get there for sure. Creating you own stuff it's enough!

Great video! Great work on the corrected version. From my time working in the creative for the marketing department, it's a bit of all 4 scenarios where scenario 1 being a big part of it minus the intern part. The "Yes" men/women are part of the marketing, brand or business exec teams who wanted something exciting as you pointed out: "That's sick as hell b r o." With the amount of touch up or "Frankenstein-ing" going on, the original shot was probably just Mando sitting on a couch. The corrected version you have will most likely received comments such as: "Why is he so green? He's too green, right?" or "You can't even see his jetpack!" or "Can you make him 'pop'? It's a bit dull." This is where your scenario 3 comes into play. Not saying I'd agree with any of these comments, I hear similar comments about marketing assets all the time. Art directors...might stand up and say something but that depends on the person. You seem to have a very particular set of skills and a huge subscriber base and will never have to work in this type of environment. And I'm sure you don't. You are an artist and have one of the most important thing anyone can ask for, freedom! Freedom to do what you like with your posters. "Artists" and "Designers" in these corporate environment do not have much say, maybe some, but won't be the final say.

I’ve never seen one of your videos before , but I really enjoyed it. A plus

As a graphic designer I can attest to the fact that marketing overshadows sublime design. The point was to become top of mind for anyone who is familiar with this series and they succeeded. Obviously yours is better, but also probably more expensive and time consuming. Keep up the good work!

i agree with all you say, the 1st poster still "pop" more selling his metal armor, to the viewer. yours look way better. even the ambient greenish light bounce. but it also makes it more toned down.

hey benny you know what i love it!!!!!😍😍😍 can you please show us or give us tips or someting that help us(me) good in photo composition can you make a video about it please mean?

Very interesting. Thanks man

You didn’t improve the poster. But what you failed to recognize is the contrast is necessary to make the subjects stand out. All you did was make them blend in to the scene better and make the characters stand out less - which is not the point of a poster. There’s artistic value into the lighting on posters. Din’s helmet is also an iconic shape, putting the Jetpack on the side is incorrect aesthetically but by you moving it behind the correct position makes the helmet even harder to instantly contrast out visually. When it’s a clip from a movie, the work you did was fine, but you failed on the most fundamental point of the poster and that is for the audience to recognize the characters instantly and to grab their attention. Also the placement of the text works. The title isn’t the star of the show. People aren’t stupid, they know what they are looking at just by seeing the characters. It’s the third season, the title is no longer as important as the story telling aspect. This is why they sometimes don’t even put movie titles on posters but instead leave visual clues and a date. What you aren’t understanding is the balance between effective marketing. Cause at the end of the day, most people won’t give a crap about your correct lighting. You did an amazing job. But you didn’t improve the poster. It was fine the way it was. Your mentality towards the photo is visual first, story / marketing second. Which works if you are the guy color correcting a clip for the show. But this is a poster, not a screengrab. Disney wouldn’t have someone who didn’t give a crap about the Brand to push this out. It’s likely that it was rushed. Imperfections are also part of film making culture and in some cases is deliberate. They even use sound bites from other movies as an homage or leave little Easter eggs. Regardless, the original poster was more effective in its original form. It’s purpose was not to give you a clip from the show. It’s to grab your attention, highlight the characters, and glamorize the show.

Hey Benny. Remember that 24 hour video you did? In that video you said at first that you were going to try and do 100 hours but said it was impossible. I have an idea for you to make that 100 hour challenge video. Combine every single photo shop you’ve ever done and combine it into one photo

Great video!! The lighting is truly all over the place. And I need to know, where did you get that slave 1 hoodie/jacket?1!?

Love the quality of your Videos

When i first saw this terrible poster, i was hoping that benny might fix this and make this as stunning as it should be. Benny didnt disappoint

Ngl.. it looks better but who much cares Posters wasn’t terrible to begging with :/

I guess MONEY! takes all. 😂✌ Great work Benny. #loveit🔥‼️

Awesome work Benny

Admit it we all knew this was coming when we saw his story on Instagram 😂

All this negativity for bloom, a rim light and a jetpack. Watch out mate, if 10 top comments are actual industry professionals correcting you, you can be sure 50x that amount are discussing your video and remembering Bennyprod as "wasn't he that guy who trashed on Jimmy's crunched out poster for a rimlight?". It's likely the people involved in this poster saw your video, and that's not gonna help if you want to work with them.

I would love to see a 'Making my desktop background' video one day!

Great job. You should make this a series.

DUDE: As former art director and poster designer(Disney, WB, AMC, ect), you need to understand, none of these scenarios are what happened -- we get one day to design 30 different poster options, and we do this every day. Sometimes with even less time, sometimes we have a couple hours to design as many posters as possible for the client to decide from. Yes, sometimes there are bad designers, but often what you have is people doing a ton of design work non-stop with very little rest or time to think. Stuff slides through the cracks, and the production companies grab the poster before we have time to review and just start posting it everywhere. Design 30 posters over 8 hours for 5 days a week for a year, and then you might understand why this stuff happens. And maybe someone has talented as you would still make no mistakes, but please understand -- these are people's work you are trashing. And it's very hard work.

To be honest, your version looks worse. (In relation to it’s purpose being a poster) Here's why: Your version put more emphasis on the title when the characters should be the first thing people recognize when they see the poster. Grogu is the most popular character here and you overshadowed him. The original lighter and less saturated background worked because it allows the characters to stand out more. Posters will use size and color heirachy to place proper emphasis on what the promotion is trying to accomplish. Posters don’t follow the same rules as a screen grab from the movie - the objects in it are meant to stick out. P.S. You overbloom everything. This isn't a Cliff Blazinsky game promotion. Not every poster needs bloom. They had that crap all over the second trilogy as a cheap effect to make the outdated effects blend in and appear more “realistic”.

This is Definitely going to turn into a series XD

I'm sorry, but the original version is better. It makes the main character stand out more, everything with a green tint loses personality

LET'S BE HONEST!!!!, The posters made by fans are much more elaborate and complex than the official posters PS: It's just my point of view.