Born in New York City. Sound designer on some of the most iconic films ever made. Short filmmaker for Saturday Night Live. Writer for late-night television. Speech scientist at IBM Research, where he created the voice for Watson on Jeopardy!. Builder of handmade mechanical calculators. Based in Nyack, NY.
Work — Chronological
1979
Apocalypse Now — Sound Design
Francis Ford Coppola's Vietnam epic. Andy worked on the sound for approximately two years through production and Coppola's famously extended post-production.
SoundFeature Film
1980
The Empire Strikes Back — Sound Design
Sound design at Lucasfilm for the second Star Wars film.
SoundLucasfilm
1981
Street Scene — SNL Short Film
Filmed in Tulsa, Oklahoma around a real building demolition on a near-zero budget. Extras recruited from a local movie screening. Camera started rolling just 90 seconds before the explosion.
SNLDirectorWriter
1982
Push Button to Cross Street — SNL Short Film
SNL Season 7. Tom Davis unknowingly pushes the wrong button and causes a building to collapse. The camera malfunctioned and was only fixed 30 seconds before the building blew up.
SNLDirector
1983
Return of the Jedi — Sound Design
Sound effects recording at Lucasfilm for the Star Wars trilogy finale.
SoundLucasfilm
~1986
Live from Cape Canaveral — Short Film
A rocket launch parody that was shelved for years because its planned release coincided with the Challenger tragedy.
Short Film
1991
Cape Fear — Sound
Martin Scorsese's thriller starring Robert De Niro and Nick Nolte.
SoundFeature Film
1992
Far and Away — Sound
Ron Howard's period drama starring Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman.
SoundFeature Film
1993
The Chevy Chase Show — Writer
Writer for Chevy Chase's late-night talk show on Fox. Andy and Chevy were friends from before SNL (connected through Andy's brother at Bard College). A producer replaced the entire premiere script the morning of the first broadcast.
WriterTelevision
~2000s
Aaron Adding Machines
Handmade electronic calculators rebuilt with old-fashioned heavyweight switches, cranks, and levers in antique chassis. Each one works perfectly, each is unique. Only a few made per year.
ArtInvention
2011
IBM Watson on Jeopardy! — Voice Creator
As a Research Staff Member at IBM T.J. Watson Research Center, Andy created the voice for Watson's appearance on Jeopardy! Pronunciation accuracy was the biggest challenge.
IBMWatsonSpeech Synthesis
2021
"I strive to have my pieces look like they are functional, utilitarian, mass-produced devices plucked from some imaginary office of another era — perhaps the 19th century, perhaps a time that never existed."
— Andy Aaron, on the Adding Machines
Press & Interviews
2009
Why Computer Voices Still Don't Sound Human — Slate
On the challenges of making machines understand context, sarcasm, and emphasis in text-to-speech.
2016
Creating a Computer Voice That People Like — The New York Times
"The error rate, in just correctly pronouncing a word, was our biggest problem."
2026
My SNL Story: Andy Aaron — The NR4PT Project Podcast
In-depth interview covering all the disaster films, the Chevy Chase connection, working at Lucasfilm, and 20+ years at IBM.
Links
andyaaron.net
Personal website with stories, photos, and project links.
IMDb — Full Filmography
27 sound department credits, 5 as writer, 3 as director.
Andy Aaron Disaster Films — YouTube
Collection of short films including the SNL and Sesame Street pieces.
LinkedIn
Professional profile.