Advice Admin & Legal Guide to creating your own Desert Island Disc

Guide to creating your own Desert Island Disc

What are Desert Island Discs?

"Desert Island Discs" is a much loved radio program on BBC Radio 4. The show features well-known guests from all walks of life and invites them to imagine themselves as castaways to a mythical desert island. Each guest is asked what 8 discs of music they’d take with them to the imagined island, as well as a book, and a luxury item.

How to create your own DIY Desert Island Disc

We’ve laid out a guide to creating your own, DIY desert island disc from home below to help you get started.

Step 1: Planning

Select your interviewee: Decide who will be the guests on your home-made desert island disc show. It could be a friend, a family member, or yourself.

Invite them to be interviewed: Tell them that you’ll be sending them to a imagined desert island and you want them to consider these questions ahead of time:

What 8 discs would you take with you?
What book would they want to take (they already have a religious text and the complete works of Shakespeare)?
What luxury item would they want to take with them?

Ask your guests to provide a list of the songs they want to discuss in advance. This allows you to prepare ahead of time and helps the process run more smoothly.

Consider if you want to ask any other questions too: Since this is a DIY version there is no need to stick completely to the format - make it your own e.g. What one meal would they take with them? What would their dream island look like?

Work out the practicalities: Book in a date and time to do this.

Listen to some examples: Get a sense for the format, the questions and how you can get the most out of your guest.

We particularly recommend the following episodes:

Dr. Gwen Adshead
Bryan Stevenson
Tom Hanks
Dame Judi Dench

Step 2: Equipment and Software

Choose your equipment: You don’t need to have all the gear. This can be done on a phone, on voice memos/recorder, as long as it is a quiet room and you hold the phone near their mouth.

Make sure you’ve got enough storage on whatever equipment you’re using.

Step 3: Logistics

Setting the Scene: Choose somewhere quiet and private where they feel comfortable. The less background noise the better!

Test the sound: Set up the recording equipment and conduct a test to ensure everything is working smoothly.

Step 4: Recording

Interview Questions: To start we’ve laid out the questions, but don’t feel limited by these. Feel free to go off script, add in some extras and see where the conversation takes you - you might be surprised!

Tell me about your first disc?
Tell me about your second disc?
Tell me why you’ve chosen your third disc?
What’s your fourth disc?
Tell me about your fifth disc today?
Why have you chosen your sixth disc?
Tell me why you’ve chosen your seventh disc?
Tell me about your last disc?
Which disc would you save from the waves? (What is your favourite of all of the 8 discs?)
You’ve already got a religious text of your choosing and the complete works of Shakespeare, what other book would you want with you on the island?
What would your luxury item be?

N.B. Encourage your guest to think about why they chose each song and how it relates to their life. This adds a personal touch to the recording. Ask about their favorite music memories, the significance of each chosen song, and why they would take it to a desert island.

Make it a conversation: Whilst it is helpful to prepare a list of questions for your guest ahead of time your interview will be best when it is a conversation. That means leaving spaces for silence, asking follow up questions and being curious!

Music Playback: Play short clips of each selected song during the recording, this will open up other conversations! (Ensure you have the rights or permissions to use the music.)

Step 5: Editing

Trimming and Enhancing: This might not be necessary, but if you’re feeling pro you can edit the recording to remove any unnecessary pauses, background noise, or mistakes and enhance the audio quality if needed.

Add Music Clips: Name the interview clips and insert the relevant discs between each interview segment e.g. disc 1, disc 2 etc. You can then create a playlist where the song clips can sit between the interview recordings.

Final review: Listen to the entire recording to ensure it flows well and is in the right order.