Celebrated at SXSW and honored with multiple festival awards, the film Secret Mall Apartment is a classic example of how Topaz Video can play an integral part in a project's success. The team at Topaz was happy to catch up with director Jeremy Workman and editor Paul Murphy to learn more about this unique documentary.

Secret Mall Apartment, directed by Jeremy Workman and produced by Jesse Eisenberg, tells the extraordinary true story of a group of artists who secretly lived inside a Providence shopping mall for four years. Part urban adventure and part social experiment, the film captures a hidden slice of early 2000s counterculture where creativity, community, and rebellion thrived in an unlikely space. It combines new 4K interviews and cinematic recreations with raw archival footage shot on tiny Pentax Optio S4i pocket cameras, creating a blend of perspectives that feels both intimate and daring.

Workman had over 25 hours of archival clips—320x240 pixels, 8–10 fps, in heavily compressed AVI files. “It was barely usable,” he recalls. “Like postage-stamp-sized GIFs.” Cutting between modern footage and this degraded video risked pulling audiences out of the story.

The Solution
After testing multiple options, Workman and editor Paul Murphy turned to Topaz Video. Using the Proteus model and fine tuning setting to the optimal result, Workman upscaled the archival clips to 4K. “Topaz didn’t just upscale,” says Workman. “It preserved the character while improving motion and detail. It never felt inorganic.”

"When we started the project, we were very doubtful that the super low-res footage could even hold up on a big screen, but after seeing the Topaz tests on a 55” monitor, I told Jeremy I had no concerns. It simply worked.” - Paul Murphy

The Impact
The restored footage allowed Secret Mall Apartment to play seamlessly on the big screen. The film has been screened in over 200 theaters, earning nearly $1M at the box office. Audiences and festival programmers alike were surprised to learn the old clips had been AI-enhanced.

“When people ask why the archival looks so good, we tell them: Topaz,” says Workman. “Most are shocked that an AI-based tool was used, because it doesn’t feel artificial. It feels authentic.”

Why It Matters
By restoring fragile, low-res video without erasing its authenticity, Topaz Video AI helped transform what might have been an unreleasable story into a critical and commercial success.

Secret Mall Apartment is now available on your favorite streaming platform.

Watch on: Apple TV, Amazon Prime, or YouTube