Watters entered the film industry in 1973 as an apprentice in the Television Sound Editing Department at
Paramount Pictures. Following his apprenticeship, he became an assistant sound editor for feature films at Paramount; in a 2012 interview, he said, "At that time I had the opportunity to work a bit in picture editing and music editing, but I found I preferred sound FX editing. Sound is sculptural, imaginative, universal and for me the most creative medium." Watters' first credit as a Supervising Sound Editor was for American Hot Wax (1978). Watters worked at Paramount Studios until 1992. In his interview, Watters singled out his long relationship with
Jerry Bruckheimer. Bruckheimer produced twenty-five out of thirty of the films for which Watters was the sound editor, from Flashdance (1983) through Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011).[3][4]
In 2012, Watters received the Career Achievement Award of the
Motion Picture Sound Editors (MPSE), which is an honorary society of sound editors based in the United States.[3][5]
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abA brief biography of Watters was published by the MPSE on the occasion of his career achievement award; see
"2012 MPSE Career Achievement Recipient". Motion Picture Sound Editors. Archived from
the original on 2014-02-17.