Arts Journalism Profile: Madi Goldman
April Ginns
Week 10
Profile
Maybe nobody would expect Madison Goldman to love her job. She’s 25 and just graduated from Boston University with her Masters in screenwriting during COVID, in May 2020. Is she using her coveted degree? Currently, it is Saturday, and she is using it to record a Bat Mitzvah on Zoom. It is a post-COVID Bat Mitzvah in 2021, at Temple Beth Elohim (TBE) in Wellesley. Goldman has been working in Zoom support at the reform synagogue since November 2020. But she wears multiple hats. In reality, she is the temple’s sole videographer and photographer, as well as someone who works in admin for tech support, and she also teaches two classes in the middle school education program. She teaches a class on personal and Jewish identity, with a focus on gender, and one on science. She excitedly announces,
“For Chanukah classes, I’m doing eight days of FIRE!” Goldman began teaching at TBE at the same time as her Zoom support work began, but her role quickly evolved into being a full Multimedia Producer as well.
All of the thirteen-year-old girls in the sunny chapel are wearing white dad sneakers with their nice dresses. Goldman has a nice voice; she’s singing along with the Hazzan. She knows all of the songs and all of the chants; she grew up with the same reform Jewish traditions herself, but she also hears these exact melodies and services over and over again every week. There are two to four services per each Saturday. She and her tech partner, Max Wallace, leave and come back between the services, but are on the timesheet for the whole day.
Goldman had a capital-T Ten Year Plan before COVID. She went to Boston University for undergrad (which she did until 2018); she was close with her team at BUTV. She was an outlier in her program to stay at BU for grad school, to immediately continue and complete her screenwriting master’s degree (which she got in 2020). Then she planned to leave Boston, and move to work in screenwriting in Los Angeles, and come back to Boston afterwards as a film professor to teach. Now, post-COVID onset, she is indefinitely stationary in Wellesley. Wallace interjects that Goldman is looking at other jobs, maybe even applying; he knows about her career goals, and thinks she has a chance. But Goldman insists she’s not itching to leave just yet.
In college, after a bad breakup with an orthodox guy, she found a Jewish STEM summer camp, where she got a job teaching film to middle schoolers. Goldman consistently looks like she is trying not to smile even when she is being serious, as one of her recurring campers puts it.
When COVID began so close to graduation, Goldman knew she wanted to stay in Boston. She’s from Jersey but feels like Boston is her home. It is her favorite place.
She had already begun her job search. She had not considered even the possibility of a job tied to Judaism before, but then, after graduating, and seeing the job posting at Temple Beth Elohim, and not wanting to give up her Hollywood dreams just yet, she knew it would be a perfect fit, and she knew she had the opportunity in the bag. One of her co-counselors remembers,
“I know she was really, really excited for [this] position, because you know that’s a really, you know, even if you’re editing video, for example, that’s a pretty big position, especially because the film industry as a whole, it’s so hard to find jobs.”
Goldman is snarky and sarcastic, and you can tell that this synagogue is not her end goal. But she is a hard worker and brings her passion to the job.
For this service, she is currently working the livestream and the Zoom recording at the same time. The two freestanding cameras in the beautiful chapel are controlled and recorded by computers and two iPads in the booth set up in the back of the sanctuary with COVID-compliant plastic barrier walls, where Goldman and Wallace sit on the velvet bench. Wallace started working at the temple just six months before Goldman was hired, and the two are very close.
Goldman asks a ton of friendly questions while waiting for the service to start and is very conversational. She asks for permission and then gives huge hugs to people she has just met. Finally, she is done setting up, the Rabbi chats with her for a bit, and then the Bat Mitzvah is about to begin. Goldman announces for herself,
“We won’t talk during the service, OK!” She waits a few minutes into the first portion of the service and proceeds to talk during the entire service, in addition to scrolling her phone, laughing at Tweets.
She is snarky and funny, and she is cracking herself up as she runs around recording the Bat Mitzvah — an important milestone for this family — while Gabby, the girl being Bat Mitzvahed, is listening to her grandmother’s words of wisdom up on the Bimah. Goldman is not taking the ritual that seriously. She’s just making it fun — for herself. She makes a self-designed “Sad B’Mitzvah Bingo Board” on Canva for the service for her and Wallace to use, including squares such as “Mom Cries During Speech” and “Awkward Extended Family Blessing.” She leans over to show a meme.
Goldman loves Boston. She wanted to stay for grad school after undergrad, and she wants to come back if she ever leaves. She has to deal with the parallel worlds that many creatives who attend the great schools in Boston must contend with; grow to love the city, and stay, or leave to try to work in the arts in a place that better suits the industry.
“I hope the girl has a good D’var Torah,” Goldman whispers. She is short with mid-length dark hair; she is half Filipino and half Jewish. It’s her father who is Jewish, but Goldman has a strong personal reform Jewish identity. Her brother recently also moved up to attend Northeastern, and she is incredibly close with her family, especially her mom. Her family, along with Goldman herself, are happy that she has a safe place to live and stable job through the pandemic, which can be difficult as a filmmaker in any timeline.
There is a lot of tech troubleshooting that has to actively capture Goldman’s attention during the service. She curses a lot. Nearing the end of the service, Goldman lowers the window shades and screens as requested so the Bat Mitzvah in-person attendees can see the people who have been watching on Zoom. For the last song in the service, it is a celebration, where all of the children come up to the front, and Goldman dances to the music as people walk out to the small amount of food set up outside.
She loves Broadway, but surprisingly does not mention a lot of film during the workday. She loves television more than film, and her love for the industry comes from the creative writing side. She may be getting complacent in her current role, as compared to what her original screenwriting plan was. She has a lot of friends, especially from her sorority, and many have stayed in the Boston area post-undergrad like her. Others visit, and she is also close with the people she works with at her additional job she has held since 2017 as a receptionist at The Bar Method, a barre studio. She is an avid member of the studio’s book club and loves to read. She’s a self-proclaimed coffee addict; she is drinking iced coffee from Thinking Cup throughout the service — a non- “Kosher” activity in most synagogues, but this synagogue is not just reform, but incredibly modern. Goldman explains that the synagogue is very wealthy, and installed projector screens way before COVID to be more accessible.
There are two different executive directors at Temple Beth Elohim, one for education and one in admin. Goldman works for both of them with her two jobs. The synagogue is very progressive in the scheme of things, with women Rabbis and classes even talking about gender identity, like the one Goldman teaches.
Goldman looks very young and feels the need to remind people that she graduated with her Masters. Maybe she needs to remind people that she is a serious filmmaker. It comes off less as bragging, and more as a slightly nostalgic reminder of how her plans have changed since she pursued the degree. She is stylish; she is wearing a muted yellow sweater, flowing black pants, two small silver rings, and black combat Chelsea boots. And, during the service she is shopping on her phone for a different sweater from the Everlane site. She leans over and shows it to Wallace, and he seems indifferent, but it seems like Goldman will buy it anyways.
During the parents’ speech, Goldman and Wallace lean against each other.
The entire service was less than an hour long; they are much shorter these days due to COVID.
Goldman lives in Boston by herself, but on Tuesday, Goldman and Wallace come into the synagogue simultaneously. When asked if they commute together, they look at each other and say,
“Sometimes…” Today Goldman has a Chanukah task: editing a video on how to make latkes. She walks in and sits in the synagogue office. She was able to fit in her filming on Monday, and already has all the footage she needs. The video is of the new associate Rabbi talking and telling a story, and then physically cooking the latkes. The office is designed with cubicles in the center, but Goldman has a seat at a table against a wall. The office is filled with other people, all women aside from Wallace, who work in administration.
The synagogue is not open on Thanksgiving, and Chanukah starts right afterwards this year, so Goldman is getting her work done in advance. She is annoyed that she has to do some color-correcting — the latke video is too yellow. She’s editing in Premiere Pro. She used a road boom mic attached to her camera to record audio, and she edits that audio in Premiere, too.
Goldman is able to keep up other conversations with people around the office as she does her routine edits of the footage. She mentions to the room that she saw the new Adele performances live online, and she laughs at her coworkers when they make jokes, but also when they reveal their generally quirky personalities, and she, along with the rest of the office, gets easily distracted. She is the second-youngest person who works in the office, and she is not directly part of the temple crowd. She is the only true AV employee, but she takes in everything and everyone with a sense of humor that leans a bit edgier than you might associate with a religious institution. She seems beloved by virtually all of the staff, however, and loves the Hebrew school kids, too. Everyone in the synagogue seems to know that Goldman’s employment is likely temporary, and that it’s of her own accord.
At this stage in the pandemic, to the outside eye at least, she doesn’t seem that annoyed by her current state. You don’t get a sense that she is counting the minutes until COVID ends so she can dump the temple and head west. She seems optimistic. Plus, Boston, she insists, is not only growing as an arts location, but also is currently THE destination filming spot.
“People come to Boston to film scenes set in New York where they’re less expensive and can just cover stuff up. Will Ferrell and Ryan Reynolds were just here.”
Goldman is someone who is making the best out of a career plan that was upended by a pandemic. She has almost full creative license for the videos that she produces. When she came into the position, she was horrified to learn that TBE’s entire YouTube channel consisted of photo montage videos. Goldman HATES photo montage videos. She is personally proud that she was able to hide a Noah Cyrus song in the background of her last video for the synagogue, and she makes sure that everyone in the office knows.
She does not have any time in her busy life to pursue screenwriting currently.
“I am not however doing my own creative projects lol,” she texts.
“I don’t have a lot of time to”
Goldman is wearing the same black boots but this time with a leather jacket that has a tailored cut, making it look like a professional blazer. Allegra Horstmann, the synagogue’s New Member Engagement Specialist and Tikkun Olam Liaison, says Goldman is always happy.
“She takes good photos; she makes good videos. She’s good at what she does.” Goldman laughs at this and seems pleased.
As she makes the latke video, Goldman consults her beloved bullet journal, where her synagogue holiday videos are planned out. Goldman’s entire job is based around a schedule of holidays. She is an organized person. Everything is kept track of for services in a color-coded Google Calendar and Drive.
Goldman’s passion for film began when she was thirteen. Her great aunt, a photographer in New York, gifted her her first video camera and took her to Paris for her Bat Mitzvah. She has been carrying a camera with her everywhere she goes ever since. She did stage crew for theater in high school, but no multimedia.
As she edits the latke video, Goldman recognizes how monotonous and annoying the looping audio clips are, and every few minutes, she emphasizes lines out loud that are ridiculous out of context:
“2 EgGs…ya MIX…OnE CuP oF rIcOtTa ChEeSe…””
For the latke video’s background music, she is putting in “Stay Stay Stay (Taylor’s Version, by Taylor Swift. She is a self-proclaimed Swiftie and always has been. “I was fourteen in the Fearless era,” she says.
Someone walks through the office, sees Goldman editing the Chanukah video, and starts singing “Light My Candle” as a bit.
Wallace asks, genuinely, “Light My Candle is a Chanukah song, right?”
Goldman crosses things off in her bullet journal and checks her Apple watch. She uses a black Muji pen; she takes her stationery supplies seriously. She hypes herself up to keep working:
“Okay okay okay…” Her computer fans are blasting.
“My computer probably thinks it’s going to explode.” She rolls her eyes. She is humming “Stay Stay Stay.”
Soon enough, the video is done!
“I’m a quick editor,” Goldman admits, “But I prefer to give myself a few days so I can procrastinate.” She has finished editing a day before the synagogue’s calendar date that the video needs to go up. This is the routine that Goldman has settled into comfortably, and she is not complaining. She is taking her life happily in stride, but with the knowledge in the back of her mind that she has a diverse roster of skills. She driven enough to make it to Hollywood if she so desires, but her ten-year plan has time to wait.
