Japhet Asher

Simeon Japhet Asher (born 14 January 1961) is an English film and television producer, writer and director who has worked in the United States for most of his career. Having moved back to England, he was the executive producer for interactive at CBBC, the BBC's programming strand for children, and an executive producer of the live action comedy Big Babies broadcast by that network.

Asher is also the creator and author of “The Ghostkeeper's Journal & Field Guide”, the first ever augmented reality powered novel, published in 2018 by Carlton Books. Asher is considered a pioneer in the field of augmented reality storytelling, and has won multiple awards for the books with apps he has developed in this medium.

Asher wrote and produced his first television film for the American Broadcasting Company, Peace on Borrowed Time, when he was 21 years old, during 1982; it aired the following year. The 1985 HBO documentary Soldiers in Hiding, of which Asher was a producer and writer, was nominated for an Academy Award. As a partner in the San Francisco-based studio (Colossal) Pictures during the late 1980s and 1990s he was the creator of the MTV animated showcase Liquid Television and a key figure in its execution, serving as executive producer and creative director. He was also an executive producer and writer for Æon Flux, a segment of the programme which later became its own show. Between 1995 and 1997, he was the executive vice-president of programming at Tele-TV, an ultimately abortive joint venture by three American telephone companies to provide interactive television, video on demand and internet through customers' phone lines.