of the original fans were female in contrast to the target male demographic of the show. de Lancie subsequently worked with producer Michael Brockhoff and director Laurent Malaquais to put together the concept of a documentary about the fandom, as he had previously worked with Brockhoff on other documentary films. de Lancie had spoken to Brockhoff about the response to his role as Discord, and Brockhoff was curious to learn more, de Lancie subsequently further researching the fandom and recognizing the potential of a documentary to cover them. de Lancie stated that he was taken aback by how disrespectfully national news media portrayed the brony fandom, and resolved to do it "the right way". For funding, the group opted to use a Kickstarter campaign, and initially had named the documentary BronyCon: The Documentary. The intent was to use footage taken at the mid-2012 BronyCon convention, held at the Meadowlands Exposition Center in Secaucus, New Jersey, as the basis for the film. de Lancie would narrate as well as be a producer of the work. The Kickstarter campaign began on May 13, 2012. By May 16, 2012, the project had already surpassed its $60,000 goal. With funding surpassing the initial target amount, it was announced late in May that Tara Strong and Lauren Faust were joining the project as producers. They also announced plans to enlarge the project's budget, hoping to increase the scale and broadness of the documentary, upping the budget to $200,000. This goal was reached on June 4, 2012, and the budget was then increased to $270,000, a goal which was also met. On June 8, 2012, it became the fourth most funded film project on Kickstarter, and it would become the second most funded film on Kickstarter with $322,022 in pledges, not counting the contributions made through PayPal at the end of its run on June 10, 2012. Because of the additional funding, the producers decided to expand the scope, using the funds to pay for fare to Europe to attend GalaCon and B.U.C.K., two additional brony conventions in mid-2012. To reflect the larger scope of the project beyond the BronyCon convention, it was announced shortly thereafter that the film's name was changed to Bronies: The Extremely Unexpected Adult Fans of My Little Pony. Much of the production was done with the questions "Why are 20-year-old guys watching a cartoon intended for 10-year-old girls? And, why does