These are matte shots which transition gradually  from original footage to an altered scene, put your mouse over an image to see the painted elements and click to see a QuickTime of the completed shots. These shots were done at Screen Scene
in Dublin.
Most of this scene is painted, the glacier is 3D.
In this scene the glacier is painted, and the sky and falling snow are stock footage
This scene is painted and uses a stock time-lapse sky in the background.
In this shot I built a 3D model for the melting snow and used stock footage and  3D for the falling snow.
In this shot the land transforms to a desert, I used  3D particles to dissolve the people and painted the enviroment
The shot then zooms out to reveal the Earth from space, the zoom out and Earth were created by Michael McCarthy.