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“There’s roller coaster ‘exciting,’ and then there’s car crash ‘exciting.’ Let’s aim for roller coaster,” says Ben Patrick,

With over 20 years of experience in the advertising industry, Ben brings creativity, talent, and passion to his work as the Chief Creative Officer of Upstream 360 every day.

Ben has always been creative. He says that when he was ten years old, he wanted to be a creature designer or special effects artist in movies or an astronaut.

Ben credits his mom’s creativity and his dad’s sense of humor and work ethic as strong influences in his career. He also says, “Great art teachers taught me how to think creatively, and some of my first managers encouraged my weirdness while pushing for more creative and interesting work.”

With a BFA in Fine Arts and an MA in Art Education from the University of Cincinnati and early agency work experience, Ben says that “a great foundation and education in all the ways advertising and communication can work” is what led him to Upstream 360 and his current position as Executive Creative Director. Over the years, he learned from a working with a smart, diverse team and mastered how to create great work fast.

Today, Ben is proud of how Upstream 360 has grown as a company and how he’s worked to build a highly creative and intelligent team, taking on many interesting projects in different spaces.

When it comes to creative challenges, “Most of my roadblocks have been self-imposed—learning to expand my thinking, understand multiple perspectives, and continuing to be curious about the world,” he explains. One thing he’s learned in his career is that trying something different is always worth it.

Another lesson he has learned is on presenting your ideas in an interesting way. Ben says, “Ideas are also characters.” What he means is that your ideas should have names and personalities when you talk about them, like characters do.

What Ben enjoys most about Upstream 360 is the variety of projects, types of media, and products he gets to work on. “It’s really cool to see how much of our work gets out there when we have multiple TV spots running,” he says. “And influencing the way things look and feel on such a global scale.”

One of his favorite things is solving the technical challenges that are inherent in his work.

“I really like when we come together to visualize a concept or scientific idea in new ways,” he explains. “It’s always interesting to see the breadth of everyone’s creativity.”

Ben says that a lot of Upstream’s culture is influenced by the need to operate quickly and accurately for video production, which is something the hardworking and intelligent team does well.

In the future, Ben thinks there’s a lot more virtual production on the horizon of the industry, both with remote shooting and also new techniques using green screen and artificial 3D backgrounds. As far as what’s coming up in 2022 for Upstream 360? “Some of it is too secret to talk about!” Ben says. “But I really am excited to see what all we can accomplish with the team we now have in place.”

When Ben isn’t working, he’s happiest hanging out with his two senior dogs, Jack and Hugo. He also enjoys playing board games and says that his collection is “a bit ridiculous.”

Ben Patrick is a talented leader of the creative team at Upstream 360, making products and stories come to life on screen in new and exciting ways. His advice to those looking to succeed in advertising and video production? “Don’t just try to fit into an existing role—find what you like and are good at, and work on those things.”