Hi Colin,
To the best of my knowledge, bulbs were blown by hand by a gaffer at the rate of 2 per minute until 1907. At that time, Corning started to develope a machine to blow the envelopes uniformally. So I would have to say "yes", that prior to 1900 all bulbs were made by hand. This is a bold statement because I'm no expert and the books I have often contradict each other. Good luck with your film and please keep us posted on its progress. Tim Luce