TREKCORE > VOY > KILLING GAME PART II > Behind the Scenes

	This episode was affected by the evolution of the previous installment, "The Killing Game". For instance, it was not decided how writing staffers Joe Menosky and Brannon Braga would fill up this second part, until one point late in the writing of that first half. Citing the two-parter "Year of Hell" and "Year of Hell, Part II", Menosky remembered, "This felt very much in its dynamic as 'Year of Hell' did, where Brannon and I, as we were writing this, felt like we had about an episode and a quarter. We did not have the full two parts. We were just struggling. What is the image that we need?"
	It was while considering how to come up with enough material for this episode that the writers hit upon the idea of making a societal commentary, by having a certain ideology be central to the leader of the Hirogen invading Voyager. "At some point we came up with this idea that this wasn't just playtime on the holodeck. This wasn't just bad guys mucking around," Menosky related. "It was [about] a guy who [...] as leader of this small group of Hirogen, actually has some Trekkian notions, things that finally would weave into more of a humanistic message about change. How cultures who may be doing certain things in a destructive fashion have to learn to change and to somehow use elements in their culture like hunting, for example, and turn [them] to a more positive direction that isn't going to destroy the culture [....] That character thread [...] gave us more story for the second part." Menosky also commented of this development, "It especially helped part two, because at some point, it's a kind of Star Trek message [....] So what started out as 'Let's watch some shit blow up and see World War II material,' and had an action-oriented or more visual inception, turned into a story with a thematic Star Trek basis."
	Although Neelix actor Ethan Phillips found discomfort with wearing both Talaxian and Klingon makeup simultaneously, he nevertheless enjoyed performing the scenes in which his character of Neelix looks like one of the Klingons. "Klingons are outrageous to play, especially those guys we played," Phillips recalled. "They were just nasty people. And they had these big bones, lamb shanks, that we were all [adopts a gruff voice] sitting around the campfire eating, [reverts to his usual voice] and I love lamb, so that was an added perk to that show. But it was all shot in the caves, you know. It gets pretty smoky in there. We [sang] some drunken songs and stuff like that. You know, it was fun."
	Despite trying to find a moral root in his role of an unnamed Nazi Kapitän, actor J. Paul Boehmer believed the character had a rotten core that became exposed once the Kapitän, in this episode, discovered that the mother of his unborn child was a member of the French resistance. "Once I find out that she's cheated on me, it's a total scorned lover routine," Boehmer observed. "At that point, you get the real heavy Nazi stuff, because for him it has then turned into a 'let's get her' routine."
	Following his appearances in this episode's two-parter, J. Paul Boehmer went on to portray another unnamed Nazi officer in ENT: "Zero Hour" and "Storm Front". Similarly, Paul S. Eckstein appeared as an unnamed Hirogen in not only this episode's two-parter but also in the feature-length Season 7 Voyager outing "Flesh and Blood".
	According to the unauthorized reference book Delta Quadrant, so many Klingon uniforms were needed for this episode that they were a combination of commonly-utilized ones from Star Trek: The Next Generation as well as numerous rarer ones from Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country.
	Filming of this episode's two-parter covered late November-early December 1997. The Sainte Claire exteriors were filmed over three days, the second of which was 5 December 1997, at Universal Studios' "European Street" backlot.
	A map of Toulouse was used to represent the map of Sainte Claire.
	At one point on the Universal Studios' backlot, Tuvok actor Tim Russ took a break from filming (while Voyager's production crew scrambled, in the rain, to set up the next shot of this episode), relaxed in his temporary trailer (still wearing his makeup appliances for the role of Tuvok but dressed in plaid slacks and a black sweater), and spoke to interviewer Ian Spelling for The Official Star Trek: Voyager Magazine. Russ had worked at Universal Studios on a couple of previous occasions and had taken the tour of the studios. "But to be on the actual outdoor lot," he said, "is kind of neat [....] To be shooting on the backlot now makes me appreciate how far I've come. The sets are great." Russ later reminisced, "We were on location, playing and dressing differently, doing different things. That was always welcome, it was always appreciated. Any departure from the routine of saying the same kinds of things all the time was fabulous. So, I really enjoyed doing that."
	One aspect that the cast did not enjoy was the rain. Seven of Nine actress Jeri Ryan noted, "The weather was horrible." Tim Russ thought the miserable weather was unfortunately typical of working conditions whenever the Voyager cast and crew got to work outside the confines of the Paramount Pictures studio complex. Immediately after expressing appreciation at the fact that the location shooting was permitted, Roxann Dawson remarked, "Of course, I remember it was raining. We [would] rarely go out and, of course, the weather chose to completely have a downpour that day. And we would have umbrellas over us – until they called, 'Action' – and then people would run away with the umbrellas and then we'd stand there, acting and getting soaked in the freezing rain. That was tough."
	Although it rained on the second day of the location shoot, this was meager compared to a rainstorm that arrived on the next night, during which the nighttime battle sequence – at the conclusion of this installment – was being filmed. Mitch Suskin, this episode's visual effects supervisor, recalled, "The only unforeseen complication about that whole sequence is that, when we were shooting on the Universal back lot in the European village, we had one of those terrible El Niño rainstorms on the last night of shooting [....] It was all being shot in sequence [....] I remember as we stood under our umbrellas that night thinking, 'How is this going to work?'"
	The rainstorm was so extreme that, ultimately, it was included in the episode. Mitch Suskin remarked, "It really wasn't part of the script, but it ended up working out [....] It's a major part of the scene [....] It played well in the end." Suskin also referred to the fact that the location work was shot in sequence as "fortunate."
	In one shot from the night battle sequence, The Doctor (as played by Robert Picardo) welcomes the Klingons to the battle, stepping out from under an awning. He then glances up at the rain while wiping the top of his head. Mitch Suskin reckoned, "I think [Picardo] did that as a gag on the set, not thinking that they'd use it. But they kept it in because a few shots later, it was raining so hard you couldn't mask the fact it was pouring."
	CGI was used to show Teranj's view over Sainte Claire, from the holographic devastation of Nazi headquarters. Mitch Suskin explained, "We had one matte painting looking out the window [....] That was all digital. That was all matte painting, a 3-D miniature [...] done by Eric Chauvin." The fact that it had been raining during the filming of the nighttime footage influenced the creation of the matte painting. "We put rain in the Eric Chauvin shot too," Suskin noted. The subsequent shot of Teranj falling from the devastated building brought about some consternation, because – when Digital Muse had created, for the previous installment, the model of the breach between the holodeck and one of Voyager's hallways – they had been unaware of the Hirogen's descent, not having read the script of this second part. Mitch Suskin reflected, "We were actually kind of worried about that shot. We really weren't sure how well that was going to do [....] [Digital Muse] did a few touchups on [the model], and I think repainted some of the texture maps so we could get closer." With the gap model readied, the shot of the tumble was visualized digitally. Teranj's plummet was considered to be highly effective. Mitch Suskin remarked, "It worked really well." The shot was so convincing, in fact, that it even fooled other production staffers, who incorrectly suspected it was a stunt. Suskin offered, "I remember there was somebody in the office, I think it might have been one of our production assistants who was saying, 'That's really cool. That must have been a difficult stunt to do.' We said, 'No, it was really easy, because it's not a stunt at all.' That was surprisingly successful."