Chevrolet recently launched a new small car with economical gas mileage, the Sonic. The car is targeted at young, first-time buyers.

Chevy's ad agency, Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, was asked to come up with an exciting launch campaign that did not consist of the usual beauty shots of the car driving along a clifftop road. The agency decided to put the car through a series of stunts that young people might do themselves: a parachute drop, a bungee jump, and a skateboard kickflip.

The ads are so spectacular they look too good to be true. And it's certainly easier to use CGI to animate car stunts than it is to stage them in real life. But the stunts were all real, not faked.

Andrew Bancroft, an associate creative director at Goodby, told us how the agency got those shots.