Animated Brighton

I went along to the Brighton Animators Networking Group (BANG) meet up this week. It's been a while since I'd been along to a BANG event but it was really great to see such passion and positivity about the group. As someone who know's virtually nothing about animation I was made to feel very welcome and found the night really interesting.

The idea of the meet up was to talk about the future of BANG, what people wanted from the group and how to take it forward. There were certainly no shortage of ideas as animators, ranging from seasoned professionals to hobbyists, discussed future workshops, events and collaborative projects.

I think BANG is is a fine example of how groups with similar interests can work together and benefit from meeting each other.

The group was started off by Wired Sussex after one or two successful large animation events where it became clear that there was a growing amount of people with an interest in animation in the city.

We ran a few sessions for the group but it became clear that, while we could organise events, we knew little or nothing about animation. We then asked hugely talented animator, event organiser and all-round-genius Sarah Bird for her help and she's been running the group in her spare time ever since.

The group meet fairly regularly for events and workshops and also have a very successful social network style website which enabled animators of all disciplines to chat, post their work and add to a blog. Sites like these often start brightly but fade away; the BANG site though seems to be going from strength to strength with 165 members and activity on the site every day.

In the words of BANG member Katie "I feel very lucky that these groups exist in Brighton to bring together animators, facilitate workshops and showcase animation and am really eager to help with this mighty endeavour!"

So, if you've got an interest in animation then sign up to the BANG site and I hope to see you at an event in the future...