Half the time I find music distracting, half the time it's crucial. I mostly listen to instrumental, electronic type stuff, my favorite being Bonobo. He's got a couple albums I can put on repeat and enjoy as background music. I wish I liked listening to film/tv score more, but when I'm in that mood I'll put on some Bear McCreary. Especially if I'm working on something sci-fi.

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I typically write to jazz, but at the moment, I'm on a HUGE Conan the Barbarian soundtrack kick. If you've never heard it, do yourself a favor and look it up on YouTube. Epic piece of music.

Two Steps From Hell, any album.

When I have an idea for a story I start browsing my music library and I look for a perfect song, perfect genre that fits that idea - only then am I able to visualise bits and pieces of that idea in my head. A perfect song brings everything into focus - the vibe, the tone of the story and it can also change it, make it something completely different. What I do is, I have an idea in my head, I brainstorm a bit, go to different places with it, find a song that would help me visualise the movie as a whole, maybe even imagine a trailer in my head. Next, another song to help me with the ending, I need to have an ending first since that's usually why I want to tell a certain story, because of the ending, everything leads to that. And sometimes I do similar things for certain scenes, set pieces - find a song that fits it perfectly and listen to it over and over again to get into the mood. I usually don't listen while I'm writing but in between, while I think about the scene/movie/whatever I play that one song over and over, keep my eyes closed and I see what I want to write in my head - the problem is just how to put everything on paper - especially considering the fact that when people read the script they wont listen to that song so I need to be careful to not let the song carry me. I just use it as a starting point, as a sort of a creative push. For example, right now I'm brainstorming a buddy action comedy that's set mostly in Mexico so I'm listening to these two songs all day everyday https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_nvakLJAhY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwwAdtCAeik

As a person who's built their career in music, I am not a passive listener, I'm a very active listener. I can't write with it in the bg, as I'll just sit and listen, and not write. Needs to be totally silent for me, so I can get completely lost in my thoughts. That said, I'll get ideas for what music will go underneath, but I don't need to have it playing on the stereo, it's playing in my head already.

A lot of Steely Dan, a lot of piano stuff. Stuff that fits the atmosphere of a hazy New York morning, because that's my ideal writing environment.

Great question! Depends on the project, but I listen to a bit of everything. Use youtube a lot - and if I really need to get into a story and feel stuck, trailers and trailer music. Also depends on the genre - my comedy, I listened to a lot of pop and rock, on the other hand dramas lots of instrumentals and modern soundtrack/trailer scores from famous composers like ES Posthumus, Audiomachine, etc. Huge music-phile.

Lot of Bob Marley at the moment. Does depend on the project.