Movie industry veteran Jerry Virnig has died aged 80.

The former president of Los Angeles' leading independent film processing laboratory Consolidated Film Industries (Cfi) died on Thursday (20Dec12) from natural causes.

Virnig joined Cfi in 1966 as an assistant in the public relations department and rose through the ranks to become president in 1992.

Cfi serviced film reels for Sony Pictures, Sony Tv, Warner Bros Tv, Paramount Pictures and Universal Tv and the company was eventually purchased by Technicolor in 2002.

Virnig was instrumental in founding the Worldwide Motion Picture Laboratory Association (Wmpla), a consortium of leading independent international film labs with a mission to share technical information.