Jomo Fray can pinpoint the day when the bold idea of “first-person perspective” truly clicked.

The Brooklyn-based cinematographer and his director, RaMell Ross, had spent months discussing, studying, and experimenting for the filming of “Nickel Boys.” Based on Colson Whitehead’s novel, the movie is shot almost entirely through the eyes of its main characters, Elwood and Turner (played by Ethan Herisse and Brandon Wilson), two young Black men at an inhumane reform school in Florida.

The eureka moment came during a scene when Elwood’s grandmother (Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor) visits the school to deliver bad news to her grandson. “I was the camera operator for that scene,” said Fray. “And as she was building up the courage to tell Elwood something devastating, I looked away. I find it very difficult to look a person in the eyes when I know they’re telling me something that’s difficult for them.