Eric Parsons / Star staff Spenser Cohen, a 2004 graduate of Agoura High School, is a budding film director who directed a music video for former "American Idol" finalist Ace Young. He recently graduated from USC's School of Cinematic Arts.

Eric Parsons / Star staff Spenser Cohen, 22, ultimately wants to direct feature films. His favorite is Steven Spielberg's Jurassic Park.'

"Little Spielberg" wound up directing an "American Idol" Ace as his first real step into Hollywood life.

"Little Spielberg" would be Agoura High School alumnus Spenser Cohen, who earned his nickname — not entirely complimentary, he says — while at USC's School of Cinematic Arts.

The 22-year-old Cohen graduated from the film school in May, but he'd already had a big break by then. Seems that former "American Idol" finalist Ace Young was shown one of Cohen's student films and liked it so much he offered him a chance to pilot one of his videos.

Voila, and fast forward a few months. The Young video for "Addicted," a single off his self-titled album released last month, is slated to air on the show "Extra" tonight and is destined for VH-1 and MTV soon, director Cohen said. The video already has dropped on several Internet sites.

Pretty heady stuff for neophyte Cohen, who is off and running. He's awaiting word on potential videos for pop singer Jesse McCartney and Atlanta-based rapper Dolla. He's making the film festival rounds and also has formed his own production company with two fellow USC students. He hopes to someday write and direct feature films.

He counts as influences Christopher Nolan, Stanley Kubrick, the Coen brothers, Michael Mann and some guy named Steven Spielberg.

Spielberg and a certain gathering of dinosaurs back in 1993 are the reason Cohen's got this bug.

"When I saw Jurassic Park' at age 7, I wanted to make films from that point on," said Cohen.

For now, he's doing music videos. As he tells it, Young saw a five-minute student film Cohen did titled "Bedridden," a nondialogue short that Cohen described as a "Hitchcockian-like subtle psychological thriller."

"He was taken by the storytelling and quality of production," Cohen said. "A music video, after all, is a short film."

Young offered him a shot at a video. "I said, Sure,'" Cohen recalled. "It was not something I had in mind. It was kind of like one of those happy accidents."

Cohen met with Young, visited him at rehearsals and chewed over about a half-dozen songs from the album. Eventually, it was whittled to two songs; Cohen wrote "treatments" for both.

A treatment, he explained, is not unlike a writer submitting a screenplay for a movie. It is a sketch of the story arc, where the video's shot, characters in it, the visual sense and style, its look and feel.

Ultimately, "Addicted" was chosen last fall. The video was shot March 22 and 23 at a Burbank soundstage and, the following day, at an Orange County mansion.

Aside from the "Extra" bow, Cohen said he thinks the video will be on VH-1 and MTV in coming weeks, noting that Young has a built-in "American Idol" fan base.

"I think that's a really good bet," Cohen said. "The album is selling well, too."

He said that he's pitched treatments to Hollywood Records for a Jesse McCartney song and Jive Records for a Dolla single.

Jive Records, Cohen said, loved his Dolla treatment. But, he added, it's a competitive business; he knows he's up against at least one other director.

"It's kind of like a waiting game," he said. "I mean, with Ace, he said yes in November and we didn't shoot it until March."

Cohen lives in Encino. He grew up in Westlake Village, Calabasas and Agoura Hills and is a member of Agoura High's Class of 2004. There, he had no formal film training but shot little movies — "I'd have 40 or 50 kids helping me out on weekends, playing zombies and such."

Eventually, Cohen wants to slide into feature films. The directors he loves, he noted, are "ones who are known for tone."

Cohen made special mention of Nolan ("The Dark Knight," "Batman Begins," "Memento" and "Insomnia"), saying his writer-director career "is what I'd like to be."

Spielberg's "Jurassic Park" is his favorite film — so much so that a line from it supplied the name of his production company, Six Foot Turkey, formed with fellow USC alumni Anna Halberg and Kyle Burns.

At USC, Cohen started out making shorts in the adventure-sci fi realm.

"In a bad way, I was sort of labeled Little Spielberg,'" he recalled. "People told me to stop trying to be Spielberg. And I was like, Guys, that's what I want to be.' It was a little derisive, but to me it's the ultimate compliment."

Cohen explained that he doesn't want to make esoteric films "that only three people in the world will want to see."

Aside from the "Bedridden" short that caught Young's attention, another of Cohen's USC films that stood out was "Shattered," a 12-minute film about three characters whose lives intersect at a coffee shop.

It opens with the rather ominous line, "In less than a minute, two people will be dead." Cohen described it as "Pulp Fiction" meets "Heroes."

It was Cohen's thesis film, one of four (out of 50 projects) selected by film school faculty to be developed. Cohen got it into this weekend's HollyShorts Film Festival in Hollywood (it screens Sunday afternoon; see the schedule at http://www.hollyshorts.com) and is touting it to others.

He also said he's not above jumping into piloting commercials so he can hone his skills.

He's young. Promise abounds.

"Hopefully," Cohen said, "we'll be doing some films next year."