OS Crew

Brand overview and significance

OS Crew is a Boise, Idaho–based freeski collective best known for its annual street and backcountry films that blend technical skiing, strong storytelling and a tight crew identity. Originally started in 2007 by brothers Mason and Justin “Juice” Kennedy under the name OnSlaught Crew, the project grew from local edits into a long-running film series that now screens at festivals, ski towns and independent venues across North America. Over the years the crew has evolved into a small but influential brand with its own tours, events and OS-branded gear, while keeping the same DIY, rider-driven mentality that defined its earliest videos.

From the start, OS Crew has positioned itself between urban skiing and backcountry freeride rather than choosing one lane. Their movies mix handrail missions, wallrides and kinked setups with deep Idaho powder, pillow lines and jump builds in local hills. The seventh film “Electric,” the eighth urban-heavy project “Magnetic,” the ninth feature “absORB” and the tenth movie “Vortex” form the recent backbone of the catalogue, with each release marking another year of the crew’s progression. Festival guides describe Vortex as the tenth installment in the OS collection and celebrate the fact that the crew has spent a full decade producing a new film each fall.

Within modern ski culture, OS Crew represents the North American grassroots film tradition at a high level. Their work has appeared at events like iF3 and SNOWVANA, and Vortex tours venues from big-city theaters to hometown premieres at Bogus Basin and Treefort Music Hall. For the skipowd.tv audience, OS Crew sits alongside other independent collectives as a reference point for what a dedicated, locally rooted crew can do with limited resources, long winters and a lot of creativity.

Product lines and key technologies

OS Crew’s “products” are primarily films, tours and softgoods, plus camps and events that extend their presence beyond the screen. On the media side, their annual street and backcountry movie is the flagship. Electric captured a year of travel where the crew visited more locations than ever; Magnetic dialed in a pure urban focus; absORB was positioned as the ninth film and framed around appreciating the good times as they unfolded; Vortex, the tenth movie, celebrates ten seasons of filming with a mix of high-speed airs, technical rail tricks, big slams and a creative approach to features and terrain.

These films live across several channels. OS Crew runs its own website where trailers, full movies and tour dates are published, while platforms like YouTube, Vimeo and Newschoolers host full edits and archives of older projects. Festival entries and special cuts for events give some films a parallel life in curated programs, where they compete for awards in categories like Best Urban Segment, Best Backcountry Segment or Film of the Year on the amateur side.

Alongside media, the crew offers OS-branded gear: hats, visors, five-panels, bucket hats and camp caps, as well as limited apparel drops. This gear serves both as a revenue stream and as a way for fans to represent the crew in lift lines and city streets. OS Crew also organizes events such as OS Week at Woodward Copper, where the crew collaborates with the park and camp staff to deliver a week of coaching, sessions and community building in Colorado’s summer snow environment. The recurring structure of “film plus tour plus merch plus events” is the closest thing OS Crew has to a traditional product line.

Ride feel: who it’s for (terrains & use-cases)

Because OS Crew makes films rather than skis, the “ride feel” is really the emotional and stylistic experience their projects offer. If you are drawn to the overlap between street and backcountry—stair sets one day, sled-access pillows the next—OS movies are squarely in your lane. The edits are packed with kinked rails, big transfers, tow-ins, step-downs and backcountry booters, all approached with a balance of heavy tricks and relaxed, playful style.

The films are particularly appealing to skiers who like to see spots that feel attainable and lines that look like they exist in real winters, not only in remote heli zones. In Vortex and absORB, for example, viewers are taken from industrial staircases and city handrails to backcountry zones in Idaho where the crew builds jumps with shovels, sleds and a small support squad. The camera work emphasizes speed and flow, putting the viewer close enough to feel the impact of landings and the consequences of missed grabs or late swaps.

For park and urban-focused riders, OS Crew films serve as a playbook of feature ideas and trick choices: creative approaches to standard rails, ways to use walls and natural transitions, and how to link multiple features in tight spaces. For big-mountain and backcountry skiers, the same movies showcase how freestyle fundamentals translate into soft-snow environments—how to read wind lips, build landings, and mix classic spins and flips into more complex, off-axis tricks in variable snow.

Team presence, competitions, and reputation

OS Crew is built around a core roster rather than a formal “team,” but certain names recur across projects. Riders like Justin “Juice” Kennedy, Mason Kennedy, Kyle Johnston, Jake Barrett, Aden Moore, Emma Jones, Jake Cress, Josh Karcher, Carson Sharp, Ian Russell, Keegan O’Brien, Julian Gluck and Graham Gray appear repeatedly in film credits and festival listings. Juice often serves as both skier and director, shaping the narrative flow and event presence of each project.

The crew’s films have gained recognition in festival circuits. Entries like Electric, absORB and Vortex appear in official selections at events such as iF3 and SNOWVANA, where OS Crew competes in amateur film categories that include awards for Best Urban Segment, Best Backcountry Segment and Film of the Year. In some seasons the crew has taken home honors such as Ski Amateur Movie of the Year, reinforcing their reputation as a leading independent production coming out of the northwestern United States.

Sponsors and partners over different years have included core ski and snowboard brands, energy drink companies and local shops, reflecting OS Crew’s hybrid identity as both a street crew and a backcountry film operation. At the same time, the group maintains a strong do-it-yourself ethos: much of the filming, editing, logistics and promotion is handled internally, with outside partnerships used to amplify reach rather than dictate creative direction.

Geography and hubs (heritage, testing, venues)

Geographically, OS Crew is rooted in Boise, Idaho and the surrounding mountains. Local hills such as Bogus Basin and the wider Idaho backcountry provide the backdrop for many of their backcountry jump sessions and pow segments. Event announcements for Vortex describe the film as coming from “a Boise-based ski crew” and emphasize hometown premieres at Treefort Music Hall and resort venues close to the city, underlining how important the local community is to the project.

Beyond Idaho, the crew travels widely. Films like Electric and Magnetic are described as covering more destinations than in previous seasons, with trips extending across the northwestern United States and into Canada. Snowpark environments such as Woodward Copper in Colorado are recurring hubs, highlighted in stories about OS Crew Fourth of July sessions where the crew skis rails and jumps long after most resorts have closed. These summer parks serve as both training grounds and content factories, letting the crew keep momentum through the off-season.

Urban locations form the other main set of hubs. City streets, industrial zones, colleges and small-town infrastructure across the Northwest and beyond become spot maps for winter. Handrails, loading docks, natural quarterpipes and wallrides are all fair game, and the crew’s willingness to return to challenging spots season after season is a big part of why their urban segments feel refined rather than improvised.

Construction, durability, and sustainability

In OS Crew’s world, “construction” refers more to how they build projects than to physical products. Each annual movie is the end result of a season-long process that balances street, park and backcountry missions. The crew spends countless hours scouting rails and walls, negotiating with property owners where possible, building in-runs and landings, and rebuilding spots after crashes. In the backcountry, construction means digging takeoffs and landings by hand, packing in gear on sleds or trucks, and managing avalanche conditions to keep sessions safe enough to justify repeated hits.

This process demands a kind of durability that goes beyond gear. Riders and filmers need to withstand cold nights, long shovel sessions and the mental load of trying heavy tricks with limited time, weather windows and energy. The fact that OS Crew has managed to release ten consecutive annual films speaks to that durability. AbsORB, for instance, was described by the crew as a project where they put extra focus on appreciating the good times after a period of injuries and setbacks, while Electric highlighted a year where they traveled further and visited more locations than ever before.

On sustainability, OS Crew is not an environmental NGO, but their model has some inherently sustainable traits. They operate locally as much as possible, return to home resorts and backcountry zones rather than constantly chasing exotic heli trips, and build long-term relationships with parks like Woodward Copper and regional mountains. Their hardware partners include brands building durable, repairable products, and the crew’s use of electric winches in some urban and backcountry setups points toward a quieter, lower-emission way to generate speed compared with gas-powered alternatives. The most important sustainability element, though, is cultural: by creating films people rewatch and reference over many seasons, OS Crew extends the life and impact of each winter’s travel and energy.

How to choose within the lineup

For new viewers, choosing where to start in the OS Crew catalogue depends on what you want from a ski film night. If you are most interested in seeing the current state of the crew and the balance between street and backcountry, Vortex is the natural entry point. As the tenth film, it is framed as a celebration of ten years of work and offers a cross-section of everything OS does: big air, technical rails, heavy slams, pow sessions and the crew dynamic that ties them together.

If you are curious about their evolution and want a slightly earlier snapshot, absORB is a strong second choice. As the ninth film, it captures a moment where OS Crew put a lot of emphasis on enjoying the process while still pushing technical and creative boundaries. The movie blends urban and backcountry segments with a focus on soaking up good times after injuries and challenges, making it relatable to anyone who has fought through setbacks to get back on snow.

Viewers with a particular love for pure street skiing might lean toward Magnetic, which is described in industry coverage as an eighth film with a strong urban emphasis, or earlier projects like Electric that still carry a heavy mix of rails and city spots. Once you have a feel for the crew’s style, it is worth exploring the back catalogue via their YouTube channel and website, where older edits and full movies show how the riders, filming and spot selection have progressed over nearly two decades.

Why riders care

Riders care about OS Crew because the films feel like they are made by people who live the same winters as their audience. The crew is not separated from the community by massive budgets or heli-only access; they are Boise locals who shovel stairs, road gaps and backcountry jumps, drive to events in vans, and host premieres where the same people in the crowd appear on screen. That relatability makes their heavy tricks and big lines more inspiring rather than distant or unattainable.

For the skipowd.tv community, OS Crew represents a blueprint for sustainable, community-based ski filmmaking. Ten annual films in a row, a roster of riders who grow into mentors for younger skiers, recurring events at home hills and parks, and a catalog that covers the full range from street to backcountry: all of these elements show what is possible when a crew commits to a long-term vision. Whether you are watching Vortex for the latest lines, revisiting Electric on a storm day, or wearing an OS hat in your own park, the brand embodies a simple idea that resonates widely in skiing: gather your friends, film your winters, support your local hills and keep pushing your scene forward year after year.