Robert Blalack, born on December 9, 1948 and died on February 2, 2022, was a photographer employed by Crest Digital in 1974, which is where he encountered John Dykstra. Together with George Lucas, they established Industrial Light & Magic on May 26, 1975. The purpose of ILM was to provide the visual effects for Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope. Blalack's composite optical production pipeline was used to film 365 VistaVision VFX shots for the movie.