Car pool - behind the scenes of Audi's latest commercial

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Audi commercials are always ambitious affairs, but building a fake 60m-long swimming pool must count among the brand’s most audacious undertakings yet.

But why, you may ask. Well, it’s in aid of putting the focus on Audi’s more compact models, which contain all the tech of a larger vehicle – just in a more compressed package.​

There wasn’t a pool big enough to stage the production, so the set designers were presented with the challenge of building one from scratch. They have chosen as the venue the Palace of Sports in Kiev, Ukraine. A city-centre arena with a capacity of 10,000, it hosts not only sports tournaments and political rallies, but also music events – the Eurovision Song Contest was even staged here in 2005.

The giant set has been constructed from wood and finished with waterproof plastic tiles and paint to complete the illusion. It holds a few inches of water for the cars to splash about in, and sections of the wall can be removed to allow for filming. The swimming-pool hall you’ll see in the final advert will be completed using computer-generated imagery (CGI) to deliver a larger-than-life commercial that’s set to make a big splash on your screens.​

Regardless of all the collective expertise, the stars of the show, of course, are the Audi cars. An Audi A1 mirrors an Audi A7 in performing a number of synchronised-swimming moves, including the doggy paddle (which involves lots of wheel spin), the washing machine (in which they perform doughnuts) and the dolphin (where they even execute a leap into the air). Despite the number of ambitious moves the script demands, this is one area where CGI trickery isn’t necessary. These vehicles are the real deal: both on and off screen.

The soundtrack to this advert is a cover of Genesis’s 1978 hit ‘Follow You, Follow Me’ by up-and-coming artist Rina Mushonga. She is currently the focus of Audi Shout-out – a new platform created to promote fresh music