Based on a true story, Fried's first video uses the audio and in-camera editing capabilities of video along with the strategies of structural cinema to create what Fried has described as the most minimal narrative possible. The story originated with Fried's brother's experience during basic training, when two drill sergeants, Purdue and Ward, delighted in sending their young trainees to deliver insulting messages to one another, creating endless opportunities to punish the messenger. Fried plays the roles of both Purdue and Ward, while he occupies a series of cramped and cluttered spaces built especially for the video. Taped over the course of one day, the fruitless and repetitive insults continue until the artist finally retires in catharsis on sleeping bags sprawled across the bare floor.
