My work in videography has taught me that without proper key lighting, you will pretty much lose all contrast and definition in the facial area while filming dark skinned people. My mentor is a NFL Films veteran and harps on this constantly - so he obviously learned this lesson from years of setting up interviews with Walter Payton, or whoever was the darkest football negro during the 70s and 80s.

Once, we were on a outdoor shoot for a inner city day camp and I was using a board reflector to bounce a little bit of sunlight onto the subject's faces. Later that day when we were editing the footage, he showed me a before-and-after comparison and the results were pretty stunning. In the shots where I didn't have the reflector ready yet, the black kids almost looked like they were wearing fencing masks or something. You could barely make out their cheeks and noses. And this stuff was filmed with a excellent $25,000+ camera.

So yeah, I'm not surprised that some shitty webcam with garbage light sensitivity is having problems in this department.

Oh and Burd you won't catch me dead with a 360 because I'm getting a PS3. The tide has shifted. I see literally no non-Halo, 360-exclusive games that aren't also out on PC. More developers are saying "Fuck DVD, I want Blu Ray". MLB The Show. And I don't give a fuck if MICROSOFT claims that the Red Ring of Death is fixed, yeah ok, that's what you assholes said about Internet Explorer ten fucking years ago.