UAS regulatory sequences drive expression of a multicistronic reporter in which a destabilized form of sfGFP (sfGFP that is tagged at C-terminal end with the Tag:PEST(mOdc) destabilization sequence) is separated from TagRFP by a self-cleaving 2A motif. Both coding sequences are tagged at the N-terminal end with a Tag:NLS(SV40-largeT) nuclear localization signal. The transgene contains a number of translation enhancing elements: a short 87 bp intervening sequence (IVS) from Mhc to promote mRNA export to the cytoplasm, a 21bp synthetic AT-rich sequence (Syn21) to promote translational initiation and an efficient p10 polyadenylation signal. P{UAS-TransTimer} can be used to study transcriptional dynamics.