21 Reasons Why We Don’t Film On The Driveway

21 Reasons Why We Don’t Film On The Driveway

Sometimes we see comments from people saying that they wish we still filmed on the driveway. Here’s 21 Reasons why we’ll never film on the driveway again:

1 Timing: It was only available on the weekends so we were not able to work during the week when the driveway was being used. 

2 Day time noise: Neighbours don’t like angle grinders and seeing cars catch on fire in front of their houses.

3 Noise Restrictions: You can’t make noise at night time and eventually the council gets a complaint and the Police get called. 

4 Lighting: You need decent light for cameras to work properly and that meant only filming in daylight hours.

5 Weather: When it rained, we had to stop filming. 

6 Regular Episodes: If the weather was bad, episodes would get pushed back at least a week until the next weekend. If it rained two weeks in a row, episodes would get pushed back multiple weeks and “fans” on the internet would start sending abuse and complaints.

7 Unwelcome Visitors: It seems like a simple concept, but we don’t want people coming to our houses uninvited. People see us filming on the driveway and think that this means they have an open invitation to come and visit whenever they want. Even since leaving the driveway, on two occasions “fans” have come into our houses. This is not even the place we were filming. Can you imagine getting out of the shower and realising a complete stranger is just standing in your room smiling at you? Just think about that for a second. They are inside your house and don’t think that there is any issue at all that they are complete strangers and un-invited. 

8 Leaks: At least two different people made a habit of regular sneaky drivebys to film/photograph whatever we were working on and then post their images on social media with the express purpose of spoiling up coming videos. 

9 Mess: Oil on driveway, dirt on the driveway, parts on the driveway, damaged driveway

10 Aspirations: Every car lover would love a space where they can get dirty, make noise, be out of the weather and have good light. 

11 Scale: We’re constantly learning new skills, trying new techniques and tools and there’s only so many times you can paint some wheels and film it on a driveway. Bigger builds need the car to be in the same place for days, or weeks on end while work takes place. 

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12 Privacy: Some neighbours don’t want their houses on youtube, we respect that and it makes it difficult to film when you can only point the camera in one direction. 

13 Spares: A double garage with 1-2 cars in it is pretty small. There’s almost no space for spare parts, engines, half cuts and other materials, let alone production gear. 

14 Growth: It’s all about having room to grow. If your veggie garden is growing well and you love veggies, eventually you may need more space for mad tasty veggies (even if the Internet tells you that you should go back and grow your veggies in a smaller garden instead)

15 Drive-by’s: Towards our last few shoots on the driveway, people were regularly driving by the driveway to see if we were filming, they’d interrupt, yell stuff and film us etc which meant less videos. Can you imagine how awkward it is when you’re trying to make a video and 5 teenagers are sitting 2 metres away filming everything you do with their iPhones? They sit there eating junk food, throwing their garbage on the street. and when we ask them to leave they respond with “This is a public road we can be here if we want”. So do we keep filming? Nope. We have to sit inside until they leave. Ultimately this leads to #16

16 Theft: A car was stolen. So was Moogs motorbike (neither of these happened on the driveway but instead from our own houses once people started to post up where we lived) Random people hanging around and constantly posting videos, photos of your house and driveway/garage is the last thing anybody wants in regards to home security. 

17 Deliveries: We often buy parts off eBay or from Japan and getting them delivered to a house when nobody is home doesn’t work. Anything large on a pallet (like an engine or halfcut) is too big and requires a fork lift. 

18 Post production: From filming, to editing, to music and then voice over it was a 200km round trip to make each video as each segment of the production took place in a different part of Sydney. Most of our time that was meant to be spent filming was spent driving around picking up parts and gear. 

19 Flexibility: A driveway only ever looks like a driveway. Filming car reveals always look the same where as filming something like ‘Electric Space Wizard’ needs an internal space to hang a green screen and room to move. 

20 Meetings: Sometimes we do meetings or interviews for blogs and radio shows and we don’t want to have all of these people coming to where we live. 

21 Life: Eventually there comes a point where you realise that systems that you have in place are not working. When you’re not reaching your potential and you can see ways that you can do things better then you owe it to yourself to make a change. A lot of people around you will resist your change because it probably hi lights deficiencies in themselves. When you need to move forward in your life, or you’re feeling stuck, staying in the past just to please other people is never going to lead to anything positive. 

So there it is - Thanks for your continued support over the last 10 years!

*This article was originally written in 2018. We want to thank you all for your support over the last 13 years. We don't do Patreon or crowd funding but you can support us by grabbing some MCM Merch HERE. We run our own merch shop 100% independently (packed by us and our mates) and it's shipped from right here in Sydney, Australia to your door anywhere in the world. 

 


14 comments

  • Murray Ball

    Hi guys, love the channel and I loved this. I too can see why ChrisFix keeps his face covered, as for him it is about the content and he wants to be able to walk down the street. Unfortunately, in this day and age, fame or being a public figure means that your privacy gets taken away. We all love what you guys produce, and we love seeing your personalities displayed throughout the vids, like you are both different in many ways on screen, and it’s great to see the way you both present in such different styles. I also think that moving away from the driveway was certainly a necessity as per the above, and I actually prefer the evolution (you like that?) of the channel. Continue to be a fan and a sub as long as you keep producing what you do. Btw, I love the Overseas extended videos that you produce – very polished and very enjoyable. Cheers boys.

  • Ghomer

    I dont even have a driveway right now…….. i have done 2 engine swaps, a transmission, and countless interior swaps/cleanouts on the curb of the tilted street i live on. oh, and that’s illegal here. you’re not allowed to work on a car for longer than 20 minutes (basically the time it takes an average person to change a tire) or you can be ticketed. i cant wait to get my driveway paved so i can actually do some REAL car building!

  • Vas

    Some of this stuff is just absolutely- “WTF is wrong with people”, specifically numbers 7,15,16…. that’s INSANE! that’s ridiculous!
    How can people ever assume something like that is acceptable to do?
    Any kind of fame means a lot of things you suddenly have to put up with.
    Which makes me understand why Chris Fix doesn’t reveal his identity or anything, but he films in a drive way too so I wonder if he gets unwelcome visitors and drive bys too?

    It’s insane how much you guys have to put up with and I’m really happy you got a nice place to work on cars and didn’t let yelling angry fake fans stop you from moving forward and improving yourselves!

    What a great post and very interesting to read. Fascinating and scary at the same time

  • sal_park

    Really well written article. Putting down on paper (so to speak) what I’ve subconsciously known but not be able to express. Thank you.

  • Afshin

    Anyone who works on cars and thinks working in the driveway is better than working in your own workshop is a liar haha we all know we’d take a shop with a lift over our driveways.

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