– Famous Players has released its plans for Paramount 15, the 15-screen multiplex theater complex to be built at Richmond and John Streets in downtown Toronto. With more than 3,500 seats, the development, which is scheduled to open in 1997, will be the largest complex of its kind in Canada.

Artist’s drawings show a glass and neon complex housing a licensed cafe and coffee bar, retail stores, high-end video games, party rooms and concession booths, and adorned with a giant, five-sided cube of video screens. The cinemas will feature thx and digital sound, wall-to-wall screens and stadium seating. Paramount 15 is part of recently announced expansion plans which will see the company increase its number of screens by 175 over the next three years.

– Veteran Montreal film publicist David Novek has been commissioned by Telefilm Canada to conduct an industry-wide survey on the impact of the agency’s annual $400,000 investment in the Cannes Film Festival. Looking for savings, Telefilm wants feedback from distributors, producers, festival programmers, trade writers and others on the perceived benefits of its funding. Novek says the report should be ready by early November.

– Last summer’s campaign against Montreal-area cable signal pirates has so far generated court penalties and $20,750 in fines. Among the fines: $15,000 (a new Quebec record) to Cable Select following rcmp raids which uncovered 5,000 illegally-chipped decoders; $3,750 to Marcel Boucher following a raid at his Pincourt residence; and $1,500 to SA Electronics.

– AudioVision Canada, set up to make movies, videos and tv programs more accessible to 2.5 million blind or visually impaired viewers in Canada, has opened in Toronto. A division of the National Broadcast Reading Service, the service involves ‘described video,’ a process of translating visuals into words. The narrated description is added to the program’s sound track in a way that doesn’t interfere with the dialogue or sound effects. With start-up financial support from Shaw and Rogers, AudioVision expects to begin working on both broadcast and entertainment projects this fall and expects to become self-sustaining within two years.

– the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television, with Doubleday Books, has revised and updated its film and tv production primer, Making It, and has issued Selling It, a new book on film marketing. A third book, Telling It, is in the works.