Director Michael Moore’s SiCKO is already the fourth-highest grossing documentary in history and one of the most talked about films of the year. Produced by Dog Eat Dog Films and the Weinstein Company, SiCKO is distributed by Lionsgate.

PostWorks New York executive vice president of technology Joe Beirne first met Moore during a Bowling for Columbine screening at the Telluride Film Festival. Since that meeting, Beirne has served as the technical supervisor on all of Moore’s feature projects. “Michael holds himself to a very high standard, and this film challenged us on almost every level: technically, logistically and creatively,” notes Beirne.

Working with various cinematographers, writers, directors and producers, Moore captured much of the film’s original source footage on HDCAM using Sony’s HDW-F900 24p camera. Moore also availed himself of stock and archival footage from a variety of sources and in a number of formats.

After processing and cross-converting the archival footage, PostWorks’ Ben Murray conformed the film using one of the company’s four Avid DS Nitris systems. Colorist Scot Olive then performed digital color correction using a Pandora Pogle.

“When you consider how complicated the conform for SiCKO turned out to be—there were more than 3,500 events, hundreds of tapes of source material in every possible format, moving graphics, subtitles, multiple languages—it is safe to say that we were fortunate to have Ben Murray as our editor,” adds Jennifer Latham, the project’s line producer. “He has the knowledge and proficiency to produce results of the highest technical standard combined with that elusive quality of being able to perform gracefully under pressure.”

Looking ahead, Beirne and his PostWorks colleagues are supporting Moore’s upcoming documentary projects: Captain Mike Across America and Michael Moore: Live in London.