Though he identified primarily as a punk rocker, as a young man Roddy Bogawa did have an affinity for the music of Pink Floyd. After all, his very first concert was seeing the group on the 1977 Animals tour.

Later, as a film director, he put another foot in their camp by directing a documentary on the band’s close friend/longtime graphic designer and the firm he co-founded, 2011’s Taken by Storm: The Art of Storm Thorgerson and Hipgnosis.

Though—as Bogawa admits—when a musician friend first brought up that name, he thought it sounded like “some Finnish death metal singer.”

Classic Rock fans know Hipgnosis images from the covers for Pink Floyd records including Atom Heart Mother, The Dark Side of the Moon, and Wish You Were Here, as well as memorable projects for Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, AC/DC and Genesis.

It was at a screening of that film that musician Rob Dickinson of the band Catherine Wheel first floated the idea that Bogawa’s next doc should be about Pink Floyd’s “lost” co-founder, Syd Barrett. Thorgerson was listening nearby.

“And so, the next morning we were at breakfast and and Storm said to me ‘So, what are you doing about Syd Barrett, Roddy? Maybe you are the one!” Bogawa laughs via Zoom from his home.

Intrigued, he spent the summer digesting books about Barrett and other documentaries, and even making a brief outline with Thorgerson and an illustrator about what a potential film would look like. But if he thought the decision to go forward was still his, he was mistaken.

“Storm called me from LA and said ‘We’ve started the film on Syd!’ He was already conducting interviews!” Bogawa says.

And thus, years later, we now have the deep-dive documentary Have You Got It Yet? The Story of Syd Barrett and Pink Floyd (Mercury Studios/Believe Media/A Cat Called Power/Abramorama).

One of rock’s most enduring legends and cautionary tales (usually with the descriptor “tragic” attached) is that of Syd Barrett and Pink Floyd. And here it is in a nutshell.

Art school student take up singing and the guitar and forms a band with friends under the weird name The Pink Floyd Sound. Their spacey, psychedelic sound is like nobody else and they put out two well-regarded albums with said student—Syd Barrett—as the creative force.

He wrote the band’s first two singles “Arnold Layne” and “See Emily Play.” He also contributed offbeat subject material like “Bike,” a tune about his admiration for. . .his favored form of transportation.

But a combination of insecurity, career pressure, undiagnosed mental illness, and copious, copious usage of LSD makes Barrett slowly fade away until he’s let go from the now-named Pink Floyd. Though there was no official firing—the group simply didn’t pick him up on the way to a gig one day.

Barrett puts out two solo records now considered cult favorites, but then drops out to spend his last decades living in childhood home, painting and gardening. Pink Floyd go on to become one of Classic Rock’s greatest acts, but always with the shadow of Syd somewhere in the background.

Unlike other documentaries on Syd and Floyd, this one has a legitimacy. It’s chock filled of actual Pink Floyd and Syd Barrett music, home movies, TV appearances and rare videos and photos. Then there’s a bevy of new interviews with Syd’s relative, friends, collaborators, ex-girlfriends, and contemporary musicians influenced by him.

And the coup de grace: Floyd bandmates Roger Waters, David Gilmour, and Nick Mason. Their participatioin was likely eased by Thorgerson’s participation (keyboardist Rick Wright died in 2008).

Unfortunately, Thorgerson is not around to see the long-gestating final fruits of his and Bogawa’s project. He died from cancer in 2013 at the age of 69. A decade later, Bogawa views his collaborator’s participation in a different light.

“Storm was basically using the film to say goodbye to everybody. He’s said he was doing this film with, but he was dying. And this was a way to see all those people one more time,” he says.

Thorgerson conducts many of the interviews filmed in London (Bogawa handled the New York ones), and you can sometimes hear his voice. This intimacy works because his subjects—most of who he knows personally—speak and remember Barrett as if in conversation with a friend and not a journalist. To the point where “Remember that, Storm?” is heard several times.

“The [band members] appreciated the honesty in the film and the emotional element. Roger said there wouldn’t have been any Pink Floyd without Syd. And David saying he wished he had gone to see him,” Bogawa offers.

“It’s always tricky with Pink Floyd. They all liked my film on Storm and because he was part of the production…it was constantly negotiating. But [Roger, David and Nick] were all super generous. I didn’t know what to expect with Roger, but he was incredibly sweet. And it was my idea to get him to recite the words to ‘Shine On You Crazy Diamond.’ I was terrified to ask him, but he did it!”

That song, of course, was the band’s direct tribute to Syd. It’sone of the more famous stories in Pink Floyd history how, when the band were recording the original track, a man showed up Abbey Road Studios. He was overweight, with head and eyebrows shaved, and wearing a raincoat. Neither the band nor their studio personnel knew who the mystery man was. Then, it dawned on the shocked assembled: It was Syd Barrett, unrecognizable.

“They memorialized him on Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here and even The Wall. [Syd] became this kind of mythological character. But they made sure he got royalties,” Bogawa says. “David and Roger and Rick even helped with his solo record. Syd was their childhood friend and they wanted to make sure he was taken care of.”

In 1982, near the end of his mental rope, Barrett left London for good and walked the 50 miles back to his mother’s home in Cambridge, where he spent the rest of his life until passing from the combination of pancreatic cancer and diabetes in 2006.

Every few years he would be “found” by some photographer to snap a few shots, but he never spoke to anyone. Late in the doc, Gilmour expresses regret he and Thorgerson never visited him, though it’s noted that the family was not keen on Roger (Syd’s real name) Barrett’s past showing up at the doorstep, regardless of their intentions.

The docs end with the one-off Pink Floyd performance at Live 8, the last time the estranged Roger Waters, Nick Mason, David Gilmour and Rick Wright played together. Fittingly, Waters pays tribute to Syd as they launch into “Shine On You Crazy Diamond.”

“Syd’s interesting because he didn’t die until long after he left the band, so there’s a fascination with the mystery,” Bogawa adds. “Maybe he just didn’t want to be in a band anymore. But he does get lumped into that ‘rock star drug casualty’ kind of category.”

All in all, Bogawa hopes that everyone from the Syd Barrett obsessive to those who have never head the man take away something from Have You Got It Yet?

“I hope it will confirm or debunk some of the stories around him. I hope this—like all my films—functions as a trigger to bigger things. It’s the story of the musician, but also someone’s friend,” Bogawa sums up.

“My dream as a director is that someone will see it and get intrigued and open up some discussion. Or run back home to look for the record. Then get pissed when they find out their boyfriend or girlfriend from 20 years ago stole it!”

For more in the film visit SydBarrettFilm.com

This article originally appeared at HoustonPress.com