Mars turns from dusty dead zone to Earth-like paradise in Terraform, a striking sci-fi short created by five recent graduates of French visual-effects school ArtFx.

"Terraform is a short film mixing live-action footage and CGI," wrote team member Thomas Nivet in an e-mail to Wired. "It tells the story of the planet Mars, being terraformed."

The six-minute short (above) flows like a folk tale being read to a child in a far-distant future. "One day, the fire birds tore the sky apart," says the voiceover, just before a wave of terraforming machines blaze through the Martian atmosphere and land on the rocky red planet. Splendid shots of spaceships and other machinery follow.

In a separate video, titled Terraform: Making Of (below), the ArtFx grads explain how they pulled off their impressive feat. Shot breakdowns and source footage show how they created (and transformed) an alien world.

Watching the two clips is a perfect way to kill time while you're waiting to see how the Curiosity rover's imminent landing on Mars goes.