Gone, Cody Nottingham

Reviewed by Tom Denton.

As you'll have seen from the trailer, this effect is a visual deck vanish from inside the card case, leaving only a selected card.

Now, I have to be honest, my abiding impression from this release is that it could have done with some more time researching, developing and working it for live audiences. This takes nothing away from the effect itself, which looks great, and definitely achieves a very convincing vanish of the deck.

My problem with it is the little details around the edges. There's a gimmick involved, which, of course, isn't a bad thing in itself, but I think that Cody could have been clearer on his technique for introducing it into play, and cleaning up after. It seems as though he thought a lot about the actual method for the vanish to occur (with a lovely added subtlety from B Smith), and rushed to get the effect out, without spending as much time on the real world performance of it.

What this means, however, is that the purchaser of this effect has a clean sheet to develop the basic idea in whatever direction their creativity dictates. The principle of the vanish is great, and not one that I've seen elsewhere, and one which could have other applications.

So, to Cody Nottingham and Bedeceived, I'd recommend sitting on effects a bit longer before releasing them, and to their customers, to buy this effect and create your own routines for it.