Mr. Garcia finished rolling 1,700 bagels in four hours, a little over an hour ahead of schedule. (It took nine 50-pound bags of flour.) Krishna joined him on his six-block walk to his next and last stop, another location of Tompkins Square Bagels. She likes to get a sense of a person’s entire day to truly understand what the job entails.
Ms. Allen and Mr. Chow, holding cameras over their shoulders, positioned themselves outside the shop’s front door to capture the exit. But as Mr. Garcia and Ms. Krishna stepped out, a bus pulled up in front of the door, blocking Mr. To install Chow’s view.
“Can you do that one more time?” Ms. Allen called out. “We have some bus interference.”
After Ms. Krishna and an amused Mr. Garcia re-exited the shop, Ms. Allen trailed behind them as they hustled—Mr. Garcia knows no other pace—to the next location. Inside, he walked down the stairs to the basement, where he donned a black apron. The smell of cinnamon wafted through the room.
“New location, new energy,” he said.
Ms. Krishna, taking a seat on an overturned white bucket, faced the camera and offered her own assessment. “I can’t say I have the same pep in my step,” she said as Mr. Garcia began mixing the dough for a batch of bright yellow French toast bagels. He had already worked a full day, yet appeared just as positive as he did when he started.
After a shoot is finished, Ms. Allen’s team will review the footage, mixing camera angles and adding music, subtitles and voice-over narration. The process can be long and tedious. The final 15-minute episode on Mr. Garcia, for example, took over a month to edit.
“You might hate overshooting as an editor,” Ms. Allen said. “But it’s worth it to capture those precious moments that tell the actual true story of the person.”
The team has five more episodes planned for the third season, which it hopes to publish every other month or so. Which probably means five more very early alarms.
“But it’s worth it,” Ms. Krishna said. “It’s the only way you get an inside view of the process.”