How to make a COUNTDOWN Timer in Adobe Premiere Pro

Be creative in Premiere pro

When you open up the effects panel in Premiere Pro you get overwhelmed with all these different effects. There are so many that it seems like you can create every effect you want with a simple drag. Unfortunately that is not the case.

It takes good understanding of what these effects can do and some clever thinking. Premiere Pro is like a sandbox, you are free to do and use whatever you can find in the program to make something work.

Countdown effect

Something as simple as a countdown you would expect there to be a preset off. But that isn't the case. However I found not one but two different methods on how to create a countdown.

Timecode

In premiere you have a timecode effect. This is mostly used to help the editor sync up footage of different recording devices. But we can use this effect to create our countdown. Simply time reversing this timecode already gives us the wanted result.

Countdown With Crop Effect

Another method is to use text. We can write in a single text layer the numbers of the countdown. We than grab our MOST useful effect the crop effect and hide everything but one number. And than its a simple matter of animating the position so each second a new number is visible.

As you see you're not obligated to use an effect for what it was initially intended. Be creative and play around with what you have.

Skillshare

Big thanks to Skillshare for sponsoring this video. I’m a teacher myself at Skillshare and you can find all my classes here.